Two weeks ago, I opened the window and “influenza.” So I haven’t been able to get out to the lake until recently. Fortunately, the swim gods felt some pity and threw us a bone on Sunday…
The extreme cold snap of the prior week had iced over the lakefront making swimming all but impossible. And with a 25F air temp and and a west wind pushing all the ice towards the shore, things weren’t looking very positive for a swim. However, we managed to find an area with a small patch of open water, so we decided to at least get in a quick dip.
The office lake temp came in at 33.4F – about average for this time of year. The water was not as murky as last month, so it looks as if the colder, more clear water from below is starting to mix up with the “winter layer” that forms this time of year. This is welcome news as this is more fun to swim in, and you can get some pretty awesome underwater photos.
While in the water, we managed to expand our swimmable area by breaking apart the thinner ice sheets. However, we didn’t want to have too much contact with it as the sharper edges could slice up our neoprene. So in the end, we did some very brisk wading in what was essentially a small pool with short lanes. Not a huge workout, but it still counts as a winter swim!
