quackers

Quack Quack and Mrs Ape leave the lido. Time to let QQ play in warm water. And return home away from the gaze of those who left him in Tooting and inserted an imposter into the SLSC Latvia team. You know who you are – shame on you!

The pool is below 4 degrees and I prophesize that it’ll be iced in parts by Friday.  Felt colder than I have for a long time. Managed to get the breathing under control straight off by ensuring that I exhaled for three strokes – it works. I seem to be countering an impulse to gasp, but by pushing the feeling to the periphery of my attention, I suppressed it. Hands very numb coming up to 500 yards and immediately dispelled any notion of doing a kilometre. Swam back at the end of six to join Mrs Ape, but she turned, hence the extra two and a bit. A little wobbly. Liz had to take my hat off and it was a minute or two before my hands were dextrous enough to extract my earplugs. Nice and toasty by the time we left though.

Ape – 833 yards, Mrs Ape – 600 yards. 3.5 degrees C.

freezing photography

Tricky, Anne and Ape

Not up to much this morning, as I was feeling distinctly dodgy. Must be the work coming up. Focused more on pics and the sauna today. We arrived the to news that the water was below 4 degrees C. Nando and Mrs Ape did 600 and 400 yards respectively and I had a few dips, but spent more time taking pictures.

Tricky and Anne posed for photos; Rose declined the cake; Mrs Ape ran a crit session on her lemon cake; I was reminded of underwater cycling whilst chatting to Pip; Pip the Elegant asked me if I was doing a mile(!?); Liz did her leisurely backstroke; Margy was deep in conversation with Anthony and Karen was enjoying the sunshine. And last, but not least Eddie had a big grin on his face.

Tricky, Anne and Ape

pics by Ape and Mrs Ape

using a Panasonic Lumix FT10

Three, it’s a magic number

Sally and Peter, our resident seals, enjoy the sunshine

In the threes! Lifeguards had it at 3.5 degrees C. Chatted to Mandy and Inez before I got in. And was so distracted that I forgot to bring the goggles down from the top of my head. Then I realised my head was very cold and that I’d forgotten to put my hat on. Getting out and then in again was none too pleasant, but it did give Nando the illusion that he was faster than me. Even a length at this temperature numbs the fingers and feet. By two lengths you can feel the cold moving up your arms. It is mightily cold. Then there’s a window of numbness…or perhaps dumbness. More lengths are possible. I get to six, Nando is still swimming, so I turn and do another couple.

Warming up afterwards we remark (Mandy, Nicola, Nando, Inez, Pip and Nick) that people are swimming more. We imagine a 100 entries for the 2013 endurance races, we delude ourselves that we could do a 1000 yard event. Then are brain cells start working again.

833 yards, 3.5 degrees C.