Time for this Senkrechtstarter to pause, reflect, update and respond to the many suggestions, pointers and reprimands I've received in the Deeper Blue forums and privately.

First and foremost, the account given in thus far reads like the story of a dude headed for a sad little below-the-fold headline in the local newspaper, something about a drowning in the health club pool. The guy in the articles violates the First Commandment of Freediving, even though he thinks he is being conservative, reasonable and safe.

The guy is doing 25m dynamic apnea repeats, with his "mono fin" (soon somebody will politely tell him it's one word) alone, coming off a zero base. He even goes to the pool during hours when he knows nobody will be there, not even some poor old grandma who could at least tell our hero's wife he went out like a man. True, he made sure to have a competent buddy when he tried his 50m dynamic with monofin, which is good thinking, but this guy is all wrong assuming he's in the safe zone doing 25m repeats unbuddied. Call it fact, call it religion, call it what you like: you're NEVER in the safe zone when you're alone. Not even in the bathtub. Somebody has got to set this Kotik straight on this point. Hopefully, the little tiny smart guy in his head will wake up and do this before something happens that makes his insurance company sad.

On the bright side, the numbers are creeping up. Kotik's training program, based on reading internet articles of unknown validity, may or may not be helping him improve: it could just be the fact of doing something as opposed to nothing. If so, he'll top out soon at some very mediocre levels of performance and fitness for the sport.

Physiology as of May 24, 2005: (baseline in parens) hemoglobin 14.1 (8.8), RBC 4.19 (2.70), hematocrit 42.4% ( 27.something %). These are all in what is considered the 'normal' ranges, but as we all know, our medical friends don't ask much of us these days. Prior to the Year of Living Langorously, Kotik's hemoglobin bounced around in the 15-16.5 range most of the time, crit usually above 47%.

Resting heart rate is gliding down, so the hard (though rather pathetic) cardio workouts in the gym are paying off: the old boy finally managed to er, jog 2 miles, at a slight incline, without having to slow to a walk at any time. Slo o o o w w ly, to be sure (21 minutes !) but that's a huge improvement. Resting heart rate is now as low as 59, whereas it had been in the (alarming !) 80's, baseline.