I remember the day that my older boys and I had a breath-holding contest. It was my idea. I had just been trounced by the two of them in an underwater-propulsion contest. (Imagine human torpedoes bouncing off pool walls.)

“Holding our breath? You just want to do something you can win at,” No.2 son Patrick astutely pointed out. (I had apparently abused them with my breath-holding-gold-medal-at-Club-Med story several times.)

“Chicken?” I cleverly replied.

They relented. And I handily won the first round. But my time was only 65 seconds, not Club Med gold level. Two more rounds followed. I maintained a slight lead. Our times were 1:10, 1:25, and 1:30. Then, on the fourth round, something surprising happened. Patrick held his breath for 1:50 and beat us all!

It was an astonishing feat – 25 seconds better than his till-then best.

If you have normal lungs and have no experience holding your breath you can easily do it for up to about a minute. After that, it gets uncomfortable. At about a minute and a half, your lungs feel as if they might explode. Time slows. Each consecutive second lasts longer. Getting to a minute and 50 seconds meant Patrick had to endure an awful lot of pain.

Can you guess what happened next?