Ten degrees and all's well

[andygates]

The river today was much warmer, and we put a thermomomometer in to see.  Ten degrees (fifty to you yanks).  Okay, it took the best part of ten minutes to get comfortable, but the temperature was fine for actual swimming.  So any swim that there is, isn't going to scare us because of the cold.  I'm glad on that count alone that we made the effort to get wet.

Of course there had to be an issue.  I swim well only on an empty stomach, and I mean empty.  2 hours from a light snack, 3 from a meal.  Hungry works.  Fasted first-thing works well.  So a big late lunch and a pasty grabbed on the drive over was dumb -- and yea, verily was the price paid in spades.  From this are revealed three things:

1. Barf chunks in your beard are bad, hm'kay?  But the swim washes them out.
   
2. Never underestimate the bloodymindedness of a guy who knows how bad it would be to bail on the swim.  Even if he has barf in his beard.
   
3. There is no shame in brainlooping the verses of Rocky 2's Burning Heart if that's what gets you to the end. 

Comments

[ehutch.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad it wasn't in the water when I swam back up stream.... Took me until about eleven pm to thaw out below my knees and that was after a scalding shower. I think we did a fantastic job of proving the idiot rating of triathletes is stupidly high.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Footwell heaters for the win!

Only channel swimmers can be dafter...

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

Ooooh 10 degrees. That ain't warm. I remember diving in with some dolphins at 12 degrees and I was glad of a hood and gloves.

But then I am a wuss.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

But you had dolphins to play with. All I had were chunks of secondhand Ginsters, visualized Survivor videos and a startled-looking duck!

(the other swimmers left me to my own devices, as requested)

Dolphin envy!

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

Environmentally unsound I'm sure, but.... Damn, it's cool!