Better to swim through the mild autumn into the start of winter, and build a tolerance
I think I’m made of iron filings, in fitness and in general terms, but actually I’m a physical coward. I think a lot of people are like this, but maybe that’s just a thing that cowards think. So I gave open-water swimming a shot in late October – the first hint of a cold snap – in a regular swimsuit, and gave up somewhere around my ankles. I didn’t rear up against the discomfort; I genuinely thought I might die. The most likely outcome was a heart attack.
I got a wetsuit from affordable sports brand dhb and tried again, every day, for the first week of November. I chose a beach on the Isle of Wight, but nothing – not the instructions, not the white-coated gloves it comes with – prepared me for the arduousness of getting into this garment. Squidging my legs in like sausages, bouncing around to zip it up: it was like being a teenager again, having to wear a dress that you’d bought with all your money in the world before you’d figured out what size you were. So I did all this in the house, and wandered down the street like a futurist Navy Seal overlord.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PSsTRm
via
0 Comments