Thursday, March 10, 2011

400 yards in just under 50° F water



Tonight's cold water swim was fun!  We got two newcomers: Heidi Linton and Goody Tyler.  Today's temp was 5° warmer than last time and nearly 10° warmer than two weeks ago!  At this rate it'll be 70° by Easter.  Yeah right!

I decided that it was warm enough to REALLY step it up.  Today's swim for me was .23 miles = 400 yards

Heidi jumped in at the East dock this time just to see how cold it was, and then she got out, which is great for a first go.  Josh, Jake and Goody jumped in at the east dock and swam along with me to the boat ramp like we did last week.  I bought a navy blue rescue tube and brought it along on my swim, just in case.  I should've stuck with red, but I've never seen a blue rescue tube and thought it was cool.  My swim felt great and I wasn't overly chilled.  I could have gone quite a bit further.  

When I got out I took my sweet time getting dry and dressed and that was a mistake.  I was fine in the water and right afterwards, but a few minutes later I was shaking like a leaf.  The wind chill on my skin felt pretty good, but I'm so numb that I don't realize that I'm probably making myself even colder out of the water, than when I was in.  Next time I need to really hurry into warm clothes.  Once I got my hands on the hot chocolate in the car and started sipping that I was able to reverse the downward spiral and get back to normal in about 10 minutes.  
On the way home I had the heater going in my car full blast.  By the time I nearly got home I look in the back and Sam is sweating profusely!  Like he has heat exhaustion.  I felt great by that time and rolled down the windows.  He gave me the biggest smile as the wind blew over his sweaty face.
Same place same time next week!  Congrats everyone!  At this rate it'll be 52-53 next Thursday. I'm planning to start from the boat ramp going east around the northeastern island and then back to the boat ramp.  A distance of exactly a half mile.

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