… well, actually that was “brisk” baby!
It was a beautiful morning, nice flat, crystal clear water… not a cloud in the sky… oh ya… and “brisk” water! It was 57F / 14C! You see, I generally use 60F as a benchmark… 60F is the dividing line between “comfortable” and “cold”. 60F is okay… in the 50’s it’s starting to get cold… and in the 40’s, well that’s “crazy cold”… on the other end 70F is warm and anything warmer than about 75F is too hot. At least in my twisted little mind.
Of course, I never said if that was in a wetsuit or not. Funny thing is, that’s how I feel about the water temp without a wetsuit… but that’s after a lot of years of cold water conditioning… so I generally find that most people would agree with my assessment… with the one qualification… that it is IN a wetsuit! Generally, I’d say a wetsuit gives you about a 10F degree temperature advantage. Meaning for an experienced cold water marathon swimmer, 70F feels about the same as “naked” as 60F does in a wetsuit… and 60F naked feels about like 50F in a wetsuit!
So the long and short of that convaluted analogy is… 57F was chilly… but very swim-able! And swim we did! For many, it was tough getting in… but once you got going it wasn’t too bad. In fact the vast majority swam from 40 – 60 minutes!!!
Impressive. Especially when you consider that there was 61 swimmers out there! That means that it wasn’t just me and a few of the regular whacko’s that can swim in water that “chilly”… it means that the vast majority of people can… and that the only thing that would stop you from doing it… is those little thoughts in your head… self-doubt.
But when you see 60 other people doing it… some faster, some slower… some naked, some not… you start to think you can too! And of course… you can. And that, my friend is the power of LOST Swimming! The power of people willing to try something new and to be motivated by everyone else!
Hey, I know it works… because if I had walked down to the water by myself and found it was 57F… I probably would have turned around and crawled back into bed too! So thanks LOSTies!
Well done everyone!
PS. Don’t sweat it… I’ve turned up the heat for the LOST Race this weekend… Saturday was just to help you with your cold water conditioning so you’ll have one less thing to worry about at the LOST Race!
(Curtis said he was down there swimming yesterday and it had already warmed up significantly!… 66F and rising!!!)
Cheers,
Rob