“Hey, I watched a great film last night. It was called Sing, by the guy that made Once“. “I hate musicals”. “No, this was good, I really recommend it”. “I hate musicals”. “No, yeah. I agree. I do too. But this one was good”. “I hate musicals”. “But you’ll like this one. It’s 80s music…
The car park, being a winter mid-day, was empty. I was later to arrive than the “two-minute-dip polar bears”, who’d been and gone. I’ve often thought and written about these days, the empty days of open water swimming, no souls but mine and the ocean’s, grey days when getting in the water takes all my…
Is it too cold to swim? and when is it too cold to swim? are perennial questions that have prompted a number of articles and to which I will likely return in the future. If I was to list the variations of ways people inquire if the water is sufficiently warm or too cold to swim, well, the list…
This physiological response has been mentioned so many times that I decided it needed its own specific post to plug into the Cold Water Swimming articles section. What is peripheral vasoconstriction? Following immersion in cold water, blood flow is reduced in human limbs and skin. Why does peripheral vasoconstriction happen? Peripheral vasoconstriction occurs to allow the…
I’ve been out for the water for some time. Just as the temperature starts to drop and the weather decay, a critical time for an open water swimmer to be out of the water if they plan to swim through the winter. One more day and it would be four weeks since my last sea…
This post was a companion to HABITUATION, both of which I wrote in early 2010. Since I revisited and largely rewrote that as Cold Water Habituation, my plan was to do the same in this post also. Acclimatization (acclimatisation for those of us who forego the use of the z) is a different factor to habituation. While…
HABITUATION was one of my very first posts, and the first post I wrote about cold and cold water swimming, over four years ago, little realising it would become my favourite subject. Although it is linked in the Cold Water Articles Index, I decided to air it out and rewrite it. (And change those capitals).…
This post is an index with a very brief explanation of each of the specifically cold swimming related articles I’ve written, so one can scan the entire list for what is most relevant for their question or area of specific interest. I was a bit surprised to see just how many I’ve written. Articles sometimes…
I measured the Guillamenes at 12.5C yesterday, a full 3.5C warmer than a week previously, sun in the sky, and no wind. However swimming outward past Newtown Cove the temp dropped, and halfway to the Metalman I’d say it was only about 9.5C. There was no particular sensation of gradually warmer water as I swam…
When we were in Dover two years ago for our two-way relay swim, one day we were getting ready to go swimming in the harbour. Three guys came over to us and we got talking, as is common in Dover. They had come from New York for a one-way relay. They wanted to know why…
I’m right in the middle of a painful learning experience, and that is the cumulative effects of daily swimming “into” cold or very cold. I’m tired this week as a consequence partly of last Friday’s nine and a half hour swim. But last Sunday I also started to sea swim daily. I’ve swum through the…
Edit: this post, the site’s most popular, has an updated version. This post is courtesy of searches on the site as a few variations of this question have cropped up. I guess one could divide thoughts on lowest possible water temperature in which to swim into three camps. 1 degree WARMER than it is now What…
Cold Water: Prepare- I often put on my togs before leaving the house. (Saves me a minute or two of cooling down before getting in the water). Most important on windy days. I stay warm as long as possible. Uncomfortably warm is good! Monitor- How do you feel in the water? How are your fingers/feet?…
This is quite simple but if you really understand it, it explains a lot of other things. We’ve briefly covered the various stages of hypothermia. For regular cold water swimming, the important thing here is that as temperature decreases blood-flow changes. Blood circulation from the extremities to the core decreases, in order to protect the…
In 2008 I did the first* Blackrock to Cobh 8 mile (tide-assisted) in October without a wetsuit that took me 3 hours in 12 to 12.5 Deg Celsius. I had already done a couple of similar or longer distance swims but not at this temperature continuously. (I had done Clew Bay at 12 miles and…
The rest of that summer had me in the sea weekly and I even did my first few races (the Lee River Swim, and the Sandycove Island Challenge, both around 2K) but got little real information especially I knew few people. As I said I’m a late starter so I’ll never be the fastest swimmer,…
For the first couple of months I had constant nervousness before swimming, thinking about the cold. I usually found it hard to put my face in the water each time. I got in fairly slowly trying to get used to it, splashing water on my wrists and neck (heat regulation centres, and sides, to accommodate…
The most common problem I see with cold water is the fear of cold or the lack of belief of being able to deal with it. “I just can’t handle the cold”, as so many people say to me. It is more a belief or perception though, often extrapolated from other factors, (like how much…
LoneSwimmer 