… well, let’s see… literally and figuratively it was very, very cool!
Let’s start with figuratively first. It was so cool to have such a great turn out… our biggest first day ever… 36 swimmers! Only a few years ago that would have been a huge turn out on the best of days in mid July or August!
We had our LOST Board Meeting recently and we discussed whether we should have a definitive way to cancel a swim the night before because of bad weather… we decided not to. And today was a good example of why not to cancel the night before. According to all
the weather forecasts, it was supposed to be crap. Rain, thunder, lightning, cold… the whole nine yards… right up until the night before when I checked “Accuweather”. And one couldn’t be blamed if you believed them, given all the crappy weather we’ve had since… hmmm… well for quite a while now. But in my mind it makes more sense to wait until the morning of, before cancelling a swim, if needed. And in 7 years of LOST Swimming, we’ve only cancelled it once, during a swim, because of lightning. That’s not to say that we haven’t shortened or modified them, we do that all the time, but as it turned out on this day… we got a beautiful day!
Okay, “beautiful” might be a stretch… but we didn’t get any rain or thunder or lightning.
It was air temp or 24C… no wind… but a monster storm was quickly approaching from the east. The weird thing was the big bank of fog that was being pushed along ahead of it, made it a kinda cool swim. Again figuratively.
Now on to the literal side of the description. It was pretty cool. The water that is. And by “cool”, I of course mean “freakin’ cold”!
It was 48F. I told a “modest mistruth” and rounded it up to 50F… sounds better than swimming in the 40’s… when I was explaining all our procedures to the crowd before the swim. I explained how to swim in water this cold and then told them it was 50F. I had to laugh at the reaction. Because half the crowd gasped… the other half just looked at me, as to say “ya, okay?”. Then I asked for a show of hands… “so who here are newbies?” Just as I thought… the same half that looked at me with the deer in the headlights look where the same half that put up their hands. They didn’t know enough to be afraid.
So we went for a swim. As you can see in the picture above, yes, there were 2 “naked” swimmers too… tough as nails… in any circles. We all walked down to the shore… and who was first in? Steve… naked. So when he didn’t hesitate, it kind of put the pressure on the rest of us wimps in wetsuits to get our butts in. And we did. All 36 swimmers went in. Every newbie, every vet. Very impressive. You can say you swam in 48F water. That, my friends, is a badge of honor. Yes, even in a wetsuit… you just get a bigger badge if you do it naked! Good work.
Having said that… no, we didn’t go long. 🙂 Maybe 500m or so… 5 to 10 minutes. It was kinda funny to see people swimming along the shore and back… except not all the way back… lots of people bailed part way back and just got the hell out! Fair enough. Trust me we won’t be swimming in anything colder than that this year! In fact, on June 1 last year… it was 60F! Tells you how nice the weather has been! But don’t worry… it’ll warm up soon. And when it does… it will be a piece of cake… because you paid your dues this weekend!
Great work everyone! Yes, you are all now “certifiable LOSTies!” (yes, another double entendre!)
See you on Saturday!
Cheers,
Rob