Magician David Blaine set a new world record today on The Oprah Winfrey Show for holding his breath under water for 17 minutes and 4 seconds. The previous record of 16 minutes 32 seconds was set earlier this year in Switzerland by Peter Colat.

Here is one part of the diary kept by David Blaine as he prepared himself for this life changing moment.

For the stunt, Blaine wearing a clad in a silver wet suit, entered an acrylic sphere filled with 1,800 gallons of water and spent the first 23 minutes inhaling pure oxygen, packing his lungs with extra oxygen just before the breathing tubes were removed.Just moments after setting the record, 35 year old Blaine said that this was “a lifelong dream,” of his.  “I can’t believe that I did that.”

“I actually started to doubt I was going to make it because I’d never done it with such a high heart rate,” he added. His aides said during the event that his heart rate should have dropped far lower than it did.

 
In May 2006, as a finale to a week spent in an aquarium with an oxygen mask at New York’s Lincoln Center, Blaine tried to set a new breath-holding record. Without breathing pure oxygen beforehand, he tried to break the existing record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds for an attempt of that type.

But he had to be rescued shortly after 7 minutes when he was unconscious and having convulsions.