Swimming In Ice

So here I am, at school. Due to a last minute car snafu I didn't pack my bike, leaving me with 3 weeks of training only via swimming and running. Totally fine. And yesterday I woke up early to do a swim at the pool where I'm staying, only to realize that it was dark and cold out and I had no idea if the pool was even lit, etc. I figured I'd swim after school that day, but an interesting thing happened during lunch. A classmate of mine talked about how he was swimming in a pool next to the school for his lunch breaks. So I walked over and checked out the pool and all looked good. I planned to get a nice solid amount of sleep the next night and swim for lunch.

When it came to lunch, I was kind of excited about the swim. School is pretty intense (they call the sessions "intensives" for a reason!) and so I thought it might be a nice way to kind of wake myself up midday, add some energy to my life. Also, it seemed like the best time to swim because there is less time in the morning and I'm wiped out in the evenings and anyway, midday is the warmest time for sure.

I was standing in front of the pool pulling my cap on when another classmate asked me if it was cold. I hadn't considered that before. I dipped my toe in and sure enough, it felt coldish. "Yeah, but I'll get used to it" I told her. I'm always a bit of a wimp about getting into a pool since it always feels cold but no big deal. I mean, my other classmate had gotten in effortlessly so why couldn't I? I got in up to my waist, felt cold, and dove under. It was the whole "take your breath away cold" type of cold. But I swam. I like swimming in the cold because it keeps me movin'. Had me a great swim. Did a little warm up, a stretch, and then swam for over 20 mins, getting 70 lengths in.

Despite all this, I didn't seem to warm up. Ever. Maybe I got too spoiled with the heated pool I've been practicing in. Who knows? Either way, I got water in my ears and felt imbalanced and when I got out I fully thought I was going to pass out. I mean, I was honestly feeling super grateful that I had two classmates next to me in the event that I keeled over. It was really bizarre and awful and after just lying around I started to feel a little better. Thankfully!

But you know, I'm still not pumped about that feeling. I'm going to take tomorrow off and then Tuesday afternoon when I'm back at school I'll give it a whirl again. Well, unless there is that cold front coming in in which case I will swim later in the week when it warms back up again. But it would be great to balance the swim with run, doing some brick workouts too. I've got some plans, man. We'll see what happens. :) Till then just know that I AM thinking about exercise here...and it WILL come together and be rockin' out while I'm here. It has to. :)