Also applies to Mermen!

You are what you think you are. Self-confidence is essential in the nerve-racking hours before competing. This confidence comes from hard work, sweat and tears in training and relentless practice. My triathlete heroine Chrissie Wellington said that 'you don't become a champion, you act like one, everyday'.

She also said that 'there are no limits'. It's taken me a while for this one to sink in. The only thing that limits us is a belief that there are limits. I still see other people's records as limits. I see the pool walls as limits! So this is my next challenge - step by step advancing my own progress, exploring what my body is capable of.

Dream It - Believe It - Achieve It

Mermaids need to undulate their backs to swim, like a dolphin. That means our backs must be flexible and strong. Yogis believe that the quality of the spine reflects our age - so keep young by maintaining a supple spine! Remember that the spine is made of three parts - the lumbar (lower), thoracic (middle) and cervical (upper) spine. The upper portions must allow movement of the body to flow between the chest and core. Most office workers and car drivers suffer from tight upper and/or lower backs so these exercises are beneficial for us all in daily life too.

Often forgotten, our feet are the key to the whip-like kick at the end of the mermaid stroke, and for keeping our tail hydrodynamic. Unless you've been a competitive swimmer since childhood you'll probably have stiff feet and/or ankles. It's worth adding stretches to your yoga practice that move the feet in both directions. Sitting cross-legged regularly will also help.

The engine of the dolphin kick is the core - our abdominal muscles, obliques, lower back and pelvic floor. Always add core exercises to your yoga practice and/or gym session to ensure this key body stabiliser is given a regular workout. Don't necessarily aim for a 'six pack' as this is only a superficial indicator of strength. Real core power comes from the deeper muscles in and around the stomach.

It goes without saying that a mermaid needs to spend lots of time in the water - 'til your fingers prune!

Mermaids have 'aquaticity' - a feeling of being at home and comfortable in water. If this isn't you yet, then take it step by step by enjoying swimming and drills in the pool or in open water. But remember to never hold your breath alone - get some training and swim with a buddy.

Holding your breath means eventually coming up against an intense need to breathe. Our body tells us this by sensing rising CO2 and signalling via an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm. Training involves challenging this signal, and the thought that comes with it. It's about becoming comfortable with discomfort.

We can practice this on the mat in challenging poses that give an opportunity to relax and soften instead of stiffen and lose focus. Pigeon pose is a great example.

On Sunday 6th July 2014 Rebecca set a new UK record in Dynamic apnea (with monofin) of 179m in Stockport at Life Leisure Grand Central swimming pool. This was organised by Steve Millard of Apneists UK. Judges Dave Tranfield and Gary Lowe. Many thanks to everyone who helped out on the day.

The yoga and breathing exercises Rebecca uses as part of her freedive training can be found in the OMdiver online programme here

Freediving is all about body awareness so there isn't as much scope for gadgets as there is in other sports. Dive computers are obvious assets to have for depth training to measure depth, speed of descent and ascent. As a competitive diver in the pool I've found this watch to be a handy equivalent for specific and cross-training.

The Pool-MateHR measures your laps in the pool (as long as you're swimming), stroke speed, rate, length and efficiency. This is really useful for tracking your cross-training fitness or doing breath-hold surface swimming. The watch knows you're swimming by the movement of your arms, so recognises front-crawl, breast-stroke, back-stroke and fly.  Unfortunately it doesn't recognise monofin/dolphin swim or the modified underwater breast-stroke we perform for Dynamic No Fins (DNF) but it will continue to record heart rate regardless.

The plot below shows my heart rate during a maximum Dynamic swim using the monofin in a 50m pool. You need to click the watch to start so I normally do this 30 seconds before my final breath so as not to disrupt my sense of relaxation. You can see where the dive starts (approximately) by the red arrow. I switch off the watch after three recovery breaths and surface protocol, so there is a short lag time. The graph also shows my heart rate recovery following the dive. The first minute after the dive my lactic acid levels are high and my body is paying back the oxygen debt, which explains the slightly high heart rate at first.

What I find interesting here is how the dive reflex kicks in to slow down my heart rate, all the way down to 39 bpm. The step change you see about a third of the way in also appears in other plots of similar dives. I'm not quite sure what this is yet - feel free to share your thoughts.

When you use the Pool-MateHR you need to record your cool-down surface swim otherwise it doesn't log the session. A freedive can be tracked as a set (although standard swim data won't be available, only heart rate), the pause function used for recovery and while taking equipment off. I then record at least one more set of surface swimming for cool-down.

Other swim plots have shown some heart rate blips at the wall turns, and a high starting heart rate. Both of these insights give me aspects of my dive to work on to stay relaxed so as to smooth out the heart rate profile and get the most efficient swim I can.

In cross-training the Pool-MateHR has shown over the last 3 months that my front crawl technique is improving, which is great news as I do a lot of open water swimming in the summer. I also discovered that the most efficient breathing and stroke for me is actually bilateral every 5 strokes rather than 3. But when I do reduced breathing sets to every 7 strokes then I start to struggle!

Here's a typical view using the Pool-Mate programme. The swim sets in white contain efficiency and stroke data; in between I do monofin technique drills where just the heart rate is recorded (in pink). Spot the drill sets where I held my breath...?

All in all I find the Pool-MateHR a useful tool if your budget doesn't extend to the top-end triathlon watches (£250+) and if your focus is on swimming. I will share more insights as I continue to use this watch, for example in Dynamic No Fins swims and Static Apnea.

For more details on the Pool-MateHR go to www.swimovate.com

It's surprising how much a three minute swim takes out of you. I slept for nine hours, very heavily, but thankfully woke up feeling fresh. Round two of early morning yoga, breathing exercises and porridge. I'm not one for starving myself before static, I love my food too much!

My static preparation involved a longer guided relaxation than for dynamics - I'm usually close to snoozing by the end of a 30 minute session. Once I'd suited up I spent five minutes with my legs up the wall (a yoga pose known as viparita karani) to help slow my heart rate down. Rebecca then helped me through my in-water warm-up of two holds and then a long final breathe-up before my competition performance. We hadn't worked together before so were both a little nervous that things would go to plan. A typed out list goes a long way to ease your coach's job so that they know exactly what to do and when.

My warm-up went OK but I knew my holds had been shorter than normal as it seemed an age to wait before my max attempt. I was grateful for wearing a thick wetsuit as even a kiddies swimming pool gets cold after twenty minutes of minimal movement. With three minutes to go, Rebecca slowly floated me in front of the judges ready for the competition.

I'd asked Rebecca to tap me at one minute intervals and then start talking to me at three minutes, telling me the time at intervals so I knew how long I'd held. If she did tap me I didn't feel it through my suit, so after several minutes I started wondering whether I should just wave my finger to say I'm OK. Thankfully it didn't worry me at all, in fact it amused me so I felt pleasantly distracted! I then heard a mumble, which I took to be three minutes, not being able to hear clearly through the water and hood. It wasn't until four minutes when I placed my hands on the wall that I heard a bit better, and was pleased to hear I was well into four minutes and still feeling relatively comfortable. Static is not my favourite discipline, so I often come up early out of boredom and discomfort. This time though I knew that a decent static time would put me in a good position amongst the ladies for a possible podium place.

At five minutes I felt good as I'd done a few holds of around 5:10 in training and knew I was still in safe territory. So I told myself to 'relax, relax' for just a few more moments, eventually coming up at 5:27 with a new personal best and enormous smile!

Two dives down and one to go. I enjoyed a nutritious lunch catching up with my Bristol club mates, having missed some of their performances while preparing myself. I'd chosen to go early in the static so I could have a few hours to sleep over lunchtime, but unfortunately the hustle and bustle of the competition got in the way... my own fault! I was interviewed by Allie Crawford for FREEDIVE magazine, and then met the local MP and shadow health secretary. By the time I rested down in a quiet corner for a snooze the dynamics had already begun and became a new distraction.

I knuckled down to my original plan, despite being tempted to skip the stretching and relaxation as I felt fine and full of enthusiasm after my PB static. It's so important to be able to focus on yourself amongst the noise and activities going on around.

So I took myself back through a guided relaxation, suited up and rested before my buddy Andy came over to take me to my lane for the final swim. Unfortunately there was commotion in the lane immediately before my top with a competitor blacking out and being rescued. Again I just had to keep my head down and focus on my breath to avoid being freaked out. I also felt tired, so so tired. Andy reminded me that all my mono attempts had been late on Monday nights at our pool in Bristol, so this should feel like home.

My first length was 53 seconds, slower than my normal 45 seconds in training. 50 - 100m was almost 58 seconds and my third length was just over a minute. I think a few of my friends on the surface started to worry, but for me it felt fine - I didn't realise I was going slowly but I guess my body was weary.

I'd done around 155m in training so my plan was to try to replicate that dive and surface just after my third turn. I needed a few strong words and mantras to get myself to that point as many negative thoughts of tiredness and giving up crept into my mind. The apnea sprint training I'd done came to fruition at this point as I'd got accustomed to just putting my head down to keep on flapping.

The rest of the evening went in a blur. My head was spinning with the realisation that I'd won not only the UK ladies title but also the overall female competition. And in front of so many friends and excellent competitors, it was truly humbling.

I felt proud that my hard work, judgement and sacrifices I'd had to make had all paid off.
And so grateful to the people who helped me get there - coach and personal trainers, safety divers, advisors and supportive friends and family.

Thankfully I'd won a new Aquasphere wetsuit to replace my pool suit that was hanging together with Blackwitch glue! And for the international prize I also picked up a pair of carbon fibre Fins4U Pure Evolution bi-fins. What great sponsors!

After the prize presentation we all piled to the pub to gorge on pizza and beer - two of the foods I'd missed most during the austere weeks leading up to the competition eating leafy greens and sprouts! Everyone was in good spirits, celebrating our performances and laughing at funny moments and pictures taken over the weekend. Regardless of how well or badly our swims went, there's always something to keep working on to get better, and lessons to take away to stay positive.

Last stop is home to share some champagne with my Mum, which we couldn't finish as I'm such a weary, light-weight freediver! And finally a chance to contact my boyfriend in Morocco who was celebrating my win with friends and beer overlooking the surf in Agadir.

My bed felt so good that night :-)