The Polar Bear Swim

My apartment complex has this activity every year towards the end of February where they open the pool up and let whatever crazy people want to swim to the far end and back to win a prize. When I first heard about this, I thought it was one of the dumbest things ever... but last night I ended up being one of those crazy people who jumped in!
I hadn't planned to do it. My roommate Jenny told me a few weeks ago that she planned to jump in and I just rolled my eyes and told her I thought she was nuts! But then yesterday the weather was so beautiful that jumping in a freezing cold pool didn't sound so bad. I decided that, what the heck, I'd do it. 

I got out of class about an hour before we were supposed to meet by the pool, and realized that the sun would have gone by the time we got there, and that it wasn't going to be all nice and warm like it had been all day, but that it was going to get down to the mid-thirties... and that there was little hope of the water being more than a degree or two above freezing. 

When I got home, Jenny and I changed into our swim suits and headed down to meet our death. There were five or six other people there, all from our ward (church congregation), waiting to sign a waiver so that they too could jump to their death. After signing our lives away, Jenny and I got ready to take the plunge. I almost chickened out, but Jenny wouldn't let me. We counted to three, took a running leap, and plunged into the freezing, cold water. I have NEVER experienced anything like it before, nor do I ever want to again. It was beyond cold... literally freezing.  I felt every muscle of my body contract as I struggled to regain the surface and swim to the far end.  

Under normal circumstances, swimming is second nature to me; I don't ever remember a time when I couldn't swim.  But that night each stroke took more out of me than I thought I could give.  As I reached the far side of the pool, I considered climbing out, but by that point I was already frozen through, and figured I might as well finish what I'd started.  

I shoved off with a good hard kick at the wall, which got me maybe a third the way back across the pool.  Then I realized what a stupid decision I had made.  If the first lap was hard, the second lap was pure torture.  My body was beginning to seriously react to the cold, slowing my heart-rate dramatically and fuzzing up my brain so I could barely think.  

By the time I reached the half-way mark on the side of the pool, I figured I was a goner.  Either someone would have to come in and get me, or I was going to drown.  Then I heard my name.  

"Rachel!  Rachel!  Rachel!"  One of the girls in my ward was standing at the side of the pool, chanting my name over and over.  "You can do it!" she yelled.  

That brought me to my senses.  

I somehow managed the few remaining yards and clung to the side of the pool, gasping for breath.  Jenny was already climbing out of the pool, assisted by a couple of guys, when I got there.  I tried to lift myself out of the pool, but found that I was completely unable to get even one arm up over the side.  Two guys from my ward dragged me out and made sure I got a towel and a cup of hot chocolate.  I was so cold I couldn't even shiver, but with some warm liquid in me, some dry clothes, a blanket, and a heated apartment, I managed to get warm, and in turn, survive the whole experience.  

I don't regret doing it; it's kind of cool to say I've jumped into a pool of near-freezing water during the dead of winter, but now that I know what it's like, I wouldn't do it again in a million years!