Polar Plunge
Jan 4th, 2009 by hjschmidt
Somehow Mike Finkel talked me into this. I believe the line that suckered me in was “how often do you get to do something you’ve never done before?” I mean, it’s tough to argue with logic like that. So on New Years Day, along with a large group of individuals of questionable rationality I participated in a Polar Bear Club Swim.
Statistics:
Air Temperature: 32 degrees Fahrenhite
Water Temperature: 32 degrees Fahrenhite
Methodology of creating pool: Chainsaw through the ice
Thickness of ice: 7 inches
Longest Swim: Mike Finkel with 5 laps
Greatest Number of Entries into the water: HJ with two
HJ Diving In
It takes a certain lack of thinking to dive into freezeing cold water. I’d tell you what it felt like, but I don’t remember, even after having done it twice. I guess it’s just one of those in the moment things.
Mike Finkel "Resting" While Swimming Laps
Mike made quite a show of his swim. He would swim a length, climb partially out of the water, and then drop back in very slowly to swim another length. As mentioned above he managed to do this five times.
HJ Swimming Laps
So, just because I didn’t get all that cold the first time, or, just because I’m ridiculously competitive, I had another go at this to see if I could swim five laps. I chose to emply a non-dallying technique figuring that my only real chance was to swim as fast as I could and keep my muscles moving. On my third lap, my muscles stopped listening to my brain, and I decided it might be best to end this particular experiment.
HJ Drying Off
As you can see, I survived the ordeal, along with everyone else. You can see that my one remaing brain cell is continueing to function normally by the smile on my face in reaction to the pretty girl.
Brrr. Chilly. You wouldn’t catch me doing a dang fool thing like that, even if there was girls involved! Yikes!