I had my first cold water swim of the year on Saturday morning as part of my training to acclimatise my body to the cold of the English Channel.
As I got to the outdoor pool at Guildford and paid my money to participate in my morning of torture. I would not be wearing a wetsuit and I had to sign a disclaimer to say I understood that I am ignoring the official advice of not entering the water without a wetsuit.
The pool temperature was hovering around 9 or 10 degrees. To put that into perspective, the cold water that comes out of your tap at home is around 15 or 16 degrees.
Some facts about cold water on the average person.
Water carries heat away from your body 25 times faster than air of the same temperature.
At between 10 and 15 degrees, loss of dexterity occurs within 10 to 15 minutes. Cognitive function and judgement become affected with 20 to 30 mins. Exhaustion and Unconciousness within 1 to 2 hours. Expected survival time 1 to 6 hrs depending on fitness.
Walking down the steps into the pool, the first thing that hits you is the intense pain in your legs. Imagine the deep pain of holding an ice cube tight in your hand for about a minute. It feels like someone stabbing you. Now imaging that over your entire body as you slip into the water up to your neck the burning sensation is jolting. Then you are hit by the feeling of not being able to breath. You gasp, taking in large gulps of air, but for some reason you can’t exhale and if you’re not careful, you can start to panic. After a few seconds the clamping sensation on your lungs and chest eases.
Now you start to swim, but after about 3 or 4 strokes, you realise you can’t put your face into the water. The water is so cold, you get an instant insane headache. Think of the feeling of downing a slush puppy drink or an ice cold milkshake. Instant brain freeze. You pull your head out the water for the next 30 metres until the brain freeze wears off. Then face down swimming for another 4 or 5 seconds… Instant brain freeze again. Head up out of the water again.
This repeats over a period of about 10 minutes, gradually being able to put your face in for a few more strokes each time until you’re able to keep your face in the water for an entire length of the 50 metre pool. All the while your entire body is physically burning from the cold, I can only describe the feeling as having intense sunburn all over your body with someone slapping you as hard as they can all over your skin.
As you continue the pain over your skin subsides and it actually becomes bearable, then after a while you realise the reason you don’t feel cold anymore is that you can’t actually feel your skin. It’s like that feeling when your lips are numb from an injection at the dentists. But that’s how the skin over your entire body begins to feel. It starts like a tingly pins and needles type feeling, then you actually feel warm, but it’s not really warm, it’s just the outer surface of your skin is now numb.
As you continue to swim, other strange things start to happen that you would never think about. Your fingers, usually your little finger, start to twitch. Your toes as well begin to spasm. Your lips feel like they are covered in ice cream and icy cold. Then after a while you start to feel dizzy and light headed. This is dangerous as your body is beginning to draw all your blood towards the centre to protect your major organs. This means there’s not as much oxygen getting to your brain. It’s time to get out!
Pulling myself up the steps, the first thing is the weird feeling, almost like being drunk. Then when you try to speak you realise you’re slurring your words. Your tongue has swollen up due to the cold, and makes it hard to speak. Then the immediate feeling of warmth. It’s so nice and warm standing on the side of the pool I don’t even want to wrap a towel around me. But this is my body tricking me. I know in reality it’s not warm at all, as just before the swim I was standing on the same spot fully clothed with a winter coat on and was still cold. In reality the outside air temperature is 9 degree.
I grab my bag of clothes, carefully packed in specific order so I can get them on quickly without hassle. I go straight to the showers, but the shower is too hot for me to get under it, so I go into a cubicle to change. However, I soon realise I am fumbling and having trouble co-ordinating my hand movements. It takes me three or four attempts to undo the zip on my bag. Then the uncontrollable shaking starts. Not just your average shivering, but real jerking movements, making you look like a nutter with a nervous tick. Ironically, this is actually a good sign as it is the body’s way of warming itself up. Pulling on my clothes as fast as my fumbling hands will allow, I am now fully dressed and pull out my flask of hot coffee.
I eventually get the lid off the flask, but spill more than I get in the cup on my first attempt. The only way I can do it is to hold my breathe and tense all my body to hold myself still to pour a proper cups worth. But then drinking it without chucking it everywhere is quite comical. After downing one coffee I go and check out the showers again, and as I thought, they aren’t hot at all, but only just lukewarm. They seemed scolding when I tried to get under them before.
It takes about 30 to 40 minutes before I feel able to get in my car to begin the drive home with the heating on full blast.