I signed up for this years Big Shoulders 5K swim. The last time I swam in it was in 2007. I love this race and am looking forward to swimming in it with my teammates. I am hoping to do a lot of dryland training, sneak in some pool time and head down regularly for a lake swim on the weekend. Hopefully that will be enough. I think I have a lot of butterfly in my future.
At 8:00am I tried to take my progressive cold shower in the coaches locker room, but the water temp couldn't get colder than lukewarm! So I dried off and suited up. Oh well. We got to the North Ave Beach parking lot around 8:50am and met Diver Dave, who talked briefly about what we were in for and had some advice on how to wear my gear. Steve and Nick showed up a few minutes later and we walked over to L1(Ladder 1). The water was very choppy and there was ice over all the walls and L1. Dave entered first and swam to the second ladder and popped back out while Steve was doing the temp check. It read 37 degrees and he left it floating in the water tied off to L1.
what a spectacular backdrop!
Steve went in next and then it was my turn. I walked down the ladder and followed there advice to just submerge myself and sit there and see how my body responded.
Part of my curiosity about all this is that I am pretty sure I have no gasp reflex when it comes to entering cold water. But i had NEVER been in water this cold before and was really curious to see how I reacted. While it was pretty shocking when my face went under water, I certainly had no feeling of involuntary sucking in air. It was fairly anticlimactic. I just kinda thought "OK this is pretty cold, but I can handle it".
So after floating around while holding onto the ladder for a bit I set off swimming. The first minute or so was the moment that was probably the most difficult part to deal with of the whole day. My lips felt like they were being burned and the skin was blistering and peeling off! There was a moment where I thought "Oh Shit, I'm not sure if I want to be doing this!", but it passed pretty quickly and after that initial sensation I totally adapted to the water.
Wetsuits really make swimming seem effortless! They are so buoyant. I was not expecting that at all. We all started swimming as a group south when Diver Dave yelled to us that we shouldn't go any farther as there were a bunch of ice chunks floating around. I think he took one to the head. We were also swimming in what was soon to be considered a "small craft advisory" so we were concerned about the chunks getting tossed around. So we opted to swim back to where we started and just swam back and forth for a bit.
It was pretty amazing how comfortable temperature wise I felt in the water. There was one point where I was floating on my back and laughing out loud. It was just so strange to be in water so cold and not really uncomfortable at all. Wetsuits are amazing.
After about 20 minutes or so in the water, the only thing that was cold on me were my fingertips. I did have one other issue in the swim that I will fix for next time(YES I WILL DO THIS AGAIN!!!). My left pant leg raised up off my bootie and it filled up with cold water. It really wasn't that bad, but is was something I could not correct with the dexterity of my fingers in those gloves.
We then decided to get out and discovered that the water temp was actually reading 33 degrees! No wonder there was so much ice in there. The coldest part of the outing was when we got out and all the warm water in the wetsuit drained out.
After shooting a video for Steve's blog we said our goodbyes and got back in the car. I pulled the top of my wetsuit down to my waist and put on a t shirt and sweatshirt. I was shivering a little bit at this point, but it went away pretty quickly after a few swigs of my hot apple cider i brought with.
What an experience! So much more comfortable and fun than I imagined it to be, and the conditions would be hard to make worse. I look forward to the next outing! I am also considered Ice Monster #6, which is a distinction Steve gives out when you swim in sub 35 degree water. There aren't many of us!
Funny how things work out sometimes. After my last post, I got an email from Xterra Wetsuits saying they were having a big holiday sale(70% off!). What great timing! Well I ordered one and it arrived today.
It seems to be a good fit. I picked up the hood, gloves and booties a few days ago.
I got word today that there will be a Saturday swim @ 9:00 am. So I am going to be rushing out of Masters practice to get down there. I am a little nervous about the whole thing, but also super excited. I have been emailing back and forth with Steve from Open Water Chicago and he has given me a lot of information on the physiological effects of extreme cold water swimming and how to manage them. Its all incredibly scientific, covering the "gasp reflex" , the mammalian diving reflex and "afterdrop" (a post swim decrease of your core body temp). So I have an action plan that I am going to follow preswim/postswim that should make this a pretty controlled and manageable experience.
