Cold Water Swimming is 100 Percent Mental

Race Day is here. Go Time! The Big Day! How often have we heard, “It’s 90% mental, only 10% physical?” “Get focused, be positive, visualize victory…etc.” I’ve said it countless times, to myself and others. What if your event required 100% mental concentration to begin? Is that 0% physical?

A few days ago, I completed an official ice mile swim. On the drive home, continuing to rewarm, my swim partner Jim and I discussed the brutal unforgiving reality of cold swimming. It’s mid-February and the warm days of 50-degree water temperature are long gone. High 30’s to low 40’s is the norm now. The discussion usually begins with someone’s shivering exclamation, “why the fuck do we do this?!” “I hate getting into cold water.”

The scenario is typical. We leave a perfectly warm car, wearing perfectly warm clothing, strip down to speedos and begin to wade about 60-75 meters into 40-degree water. The water temp seems to negate the fact that air temperature may be in the 20-30’s, windy, maybe rainy, hopefully sunny. It does no good to try to talk yourself warm. Not even 90% talk.

The inescapable cold wraps your legs like a vice with each step. If it dropped a degree or two from last swim, we know it. Each step becomes heavier as blood rushes from feet and legs up to the core to keep major organs warmer and functioning. Every second forward highlights the contrast of a warm dry upper body to wet freezing legs and feet (unless wind whips up, then you are totally cold). I splash my arms and face to fully acclimate (or so I tell myself).

When water reaches mid-thigh and chop splashes waist high, cold water swimming personalities split. You’re a Diver, ripping the proverbial band aid off, or Wader continuing to “adjust” at a slower pace. Someone may say out loud, “maybe today is only a plunge and we head back to the car and get coffee”. Maybe somebody agrees. No one leaves, and each step begins to add up. “Let’s go to #5 (jetty) and assess our conditions.” “OK.” Our start buoy is only a few meters ahead.

There is no mercy in cold water. Mind and body, every function, is shrieking get out and save yourself! This is not right! There is no maybe, nor partly cold. Within 60 seconds, toes are numb, maybe feet. The only goal is to swim. It might be 5 minutes, 15, or 30 minutes or more. It might be a distance such as to jetty #5, red buoy #1 and back, or 1000 meters, a mile, 2000 meters or more. Presently, the only goal is a first face down stroke.

Conventional wisdom of 90% mental, 10% physical loses pertinence. Diving face forward into 40 degree water into a full swim becomes 100% mental forcing the physical to abdicate while screaming “run away! “

The split-second commitment to action is 100% contrary to what your natural human instincts beg. You require ALL of your consciousness to force yourself do something so opposed to your innate survival wiring.

Body and mind are well aware of what shock follows. There is no ignorance, no bliss. Complete commitment to action and simultaneously total surrender to what lives in the shadow. Within a few seconds after submersion, 100% of normal sense of touch over your entire body is gone as capillaries close down preventing cold surface blood from travelling into the core. The choice is made and body engages overdrive swim mode to begin to generate internal heat and maintain function.

After the initial 100% mental commitment, the physical begins to recapture a percentage of the experience. Body/mind teamwork ensues as I continually assess physical limits with each minute.

Swimming this deep into the season conditioned my body to seamlessly begin acclimating without radical loss of breath, stinging, burning, or ice cream headaches. After the initial 30- 60 seconds of reaction, I begin to slow my mind and body into a relaxation mode allowing a “sense” of warmth to return to my arms. I often repeat Wim Hof’s words, “the cold is my warm friend.”

Very few realities rival full submersion to ice cold water. This goes beyond an ice bath. This is full submission to raw nature.

It remains all about the entire swim experience. I transfer my focus from “cold” to absorb what occurs around and inside me. I feel the water and motion of each stoke observing what thoughts enter my mind. It is about running toward discomfort for the lessons nature teaches. 99% equals 0% and doesn’t work. 100% is what it takes to live the experience.

The cold swim “workout” differs from a pool practice or burning weights in a gym or a run. Muscles are stressed to max and I push through what isn’t so much pain, but gradual shut down. The ultra-stress is body-wide internally as vascular systems adapt efficiency in delivering oxygen to closed capillaries and straining organs. These micro muscles work during the swim and after during the rewarm process, opening and closing regulating blood flow, sometimes over an hour after exiting the water.

Perspectives of life and endurance progress. Endurance is measured in degrees of numbness travelling up my arms and ability to hold the water in my stroke. Maybe I future trip to the rewarm in the car and decide how violently the shakes will last if I go for another 500 meters or 3 minutes. It is arbitrary, much like the decision to swim in the first place.

Hypothermia is a condition to push against, real but variable by person and experience. It is a moving target. We know the signs. We also know we are training our bodies to adapt. That is one lesson…

“Why” we swim in cold water will be answered another time. For now, the lessons of 100% commitment to a task or goal in the face of resistance of extreme discomfort continue to test me.

What lessons has cold swimming, or another 100% mental endeavor taught you? What are your experiences?

The NOAA buoy is reading 40.6F. One day why don’t you join us in another world. In the meantime try a cold shower for 60 seconds. Cold tap water ranges around 50F.

*An official Ice Mile is 1 mile unassisted, 5 C/41 F or below, cap, goggles, no wetsuit). More info see International Ice Swimming Association