Dave, Mike and new Lake/Ice Monster James made it out to MSW today for a swim in the tumultuous lake. Here’s Dave’s report!
The sun was shining and the air was 29F. The water was 36F. The winds were producing a nice washing machine effect. Mr. James Hooper from Brighton, England decided the best way to fight off his jet lag from England was to join our world famous English Channel Mike and Ladder #1′s Diver Dave from Open Water Chicago, for a nice cool dip in the pool followed by some fresh pineapple from Hawaii!
With the bright sunshine it was another great day at the beach. With a little luck next weekend a few more of you will find a way to get out of bed to join us before winter ends!
Diver Dave
Ladder # 1
James, Lake Monster #163 / Ice Monster #11 (congrats!)
Here’s a quick exercise I want you to do right now. Take your right hand and make a fist. Now take your left hand and wrap it over your right one. What you’re looking at is a pretty good representation of your brain. Or rather your three brains – your physical, emotional, and logical brains.
And understanding how these three brains work is essential to your success as an open water swimmer – or your success in just about anything else for that matter.
So let’s take a quick look at each one.
Physical brain
This area encompasses your upper brainstem and is roughly analogous to your right lower arm and wrist in our model. Your physical brain (also known as your “reptilian” brain) consists of several structures that manage and regulate autonomic physical functions such as the following:
- Alertness and arousal
- Breathing and heart rate
- Blood pressure and digestion
- Body temperature and thermoregulation
- Basic survival behavior responses
Emotional brain
This area encompasses your limbic system and is roughly analogous to your right fist in our model. The emotional brain consists of several structures that regulate motivation, emotions, and memory formation, and it is instrumental in the following:
- Fear, anger, and aggression (“fight or flight” response)
- Pleasure, reward, and reinforcement
- Memory and learning
- Sensory perception and filtering
- Attentional processing
Logical brain
This area encompasses your neo-cortex and is roughly analogous to your left hand in our model. The logical brain consists of the layer of the brain often referred to as gray matter, and it is instrumental in the following:
- Logic and reasoning
- Problem solving and decision making
- Planning and foresight
- Introspection and creativity
- Performance excellence
So why is all of this important, you might ask?
Because 80% of the challenge involved with open water swimming is in effectively managing the physical and emotional parts of our brains – and NOT the logical part.
In other words, you can set detailed swimming goals and make meticulous plans for achieving them – but all of this will collapse if you can’t get your physiology and your emotions on your side.
Whenever I do a swim seminar or one-on-one coaching, this is typically the first area we cover in detail. And the reason for this is that it’s very easy for an athlete to get accustomed to having his or her logical brain in control whenever they are training in an indoor pool.
Think about it – this is a controlled and structured environment with no stressors or surprises. So you can “logically” pound out your precisely formulated workout without all the inconveniences of wind, waves, cold water, or the myriad of other niceties that manifest themselves in the messy realm of Mother Nature.
The challenge lies when you thrust this logic-based swimming “wiring” into a setting that requires much more mastery of the physical and emotional parts of your brain.
And what usually happens in this scenario is that the stress of the situation overwhelms the logical brain, and the emotional and/or physical parts take over.
So as you can see, understanding and managing the physical and emotional parts of your brain is very often the key to excellence in the open water. And as we continue with the Winter Swimming Series, we’ll re-visit this concept often.
This time of year is one of extremes out at the lake. The air is often bracingly cold. The sun can be preternaturally bright on a clear day. And if the lake is swimmable at all, it’s usually in that transitional state between liquid and slush.
We got all three this morning.
Nick called me as we were in transit and informed us that the swim area was clear but that the ladders were all iced over. After cursing myself for once again forgetting to pack a hammer, we decided to meet out there regardless and go over other swimming options.
When we arrived, Nick and I went down to the ladder he had managed to clear halfway. Fortunately, during the time it took us to get out there, the sun had loosened up the ice on the lower rungs. So Nick able to kick it all away and thus give us clear access to the lake (hooray!).
We were already suited up, so we donned our hoods and gloves and quickly trotted out to the ladder and got into the drink. Mike and Nick reached the halfway point ahead of me, and I slogged through the floes as fast as I could so as not to keep them waiting. When I arrived there, we all realized that ice had formed on us during the swim and had accumulated on our hoods, gloved, and booties. In short, the lake was slowly and insidiously encasing us in ice.
I took out my camera and snapped a few pictures. When I finished, I tried unsuccessfully to stow my camera down the front of my wetsuit without letting in gushes of icy lake water. As a result, I once again had to finish the second half of the swim with my precious core body heat compromised by a chestful of 32F water (ugh).
I made it back to the ladder a few minutes after Nick and Mike exited and took some additional camera shots. I then sprinted back to the car and began the excruciating ritual of transitioning out of my swim gear in the 18F parking lot.
And did I mention that we also had a sustained east wind just to add to the fun?
We were all quite frozen after the swim, and I had a particularly nasty afterdrop. I bundled up in multiple layers of clothing but still shivered pretty vigorously for about 15 minutes. I believe this was due to the cold water flooding my wetsuit at the halfway point. Needless to say, I will certainly have to come up with a better procedure during our next swim!
I got zapped with one of the nastiest colds of my adult life over the past 10 days, so I’ve been MIA for most our recent swim outings. However, the upside of this has been that I’ve had much more time to ponder over some ideas I had about adding value to the OWC website – and to all of you cherished readers.
I’ve typically posted more educational and health-related content during these colder months, and I thought it would be a good idea to start that once again. And I felt that the best area to start would be to create a “how to” series on winter swimming – since most of the email inquiries I receive are from people asking for advice in this area.
So over the next few weeks, I’m going to post some detailed pieces based on our experiences and lessons learned over the past three years of swimming during the winter months. Here are the upcoming topic areas we’ll be exploring for our “Winter Swimming Series:”
Part 1: Gear Selection
Part 2: Pre-Swim Preparation
Part 3: Managing the Swim
Part 4: Post-Swim Recovery
Hopefully, you can all glean some insights from these articles and perhaps even join us out at the lake for a swim this winter! So here goes…
When the lake temperature dips below 55F, a strange thing happens – namely, most people decide that it’s too cold to continue enjoying the fun and adventure that accompanies outdoor swimming. And that’s a shame, really, since it doesn’t have to be that way.
The truth is that – with the right equipment and preparation – you can comfortably swim and train in the lake year-round.
For Part 1 of this series, we’re going to look at what type of equipment you might need to accomplish this. I say “might” because everybody has his or her own level of tolerance to various temperatures. So while one person might be able to swim comfortably in 45F or below water temperatures in just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles, for others this is nothing short of a Herculean challenge.
So for this post, I’m going to describe a gear setup that we’ve settled on after much experimentation. You may find the need to adjust up or down based upon your own physiology and tolerance to colder water. But we’ve found that this works for most people who’ve come out and braved the lake with us during the coldest months.
Inner layer
My inner layer is essentially the same thing I swim with during the warmer months:
1. Sports “dri-fit” underwear
2. Swim jammers
So basically, wear your normal swimwear or swimsuit as your “base” layer. I used to wear a thermo rash guard underneath as well, but I’ve found that you really don’t need one as long as you have a decent wetsuit. Speaking of such…
Outer Layer
1. Full Body Triathlon Wetsuit
It’s important to emphasize using a triathlon wetsuit versus a scuba wetsuit or a windsurfing wetsuit. The latter are not designed for swimming comfortably for extended periods of time. So you want to make sure you use one designed specifically for distance swimming. These typically have 5mm neoprene on the front areas for bouyancy with thinner layers (3mm) on the arms, back, and neck area for enhanced mobility.
But which brand of wetsuit is the best?
I get a lot of people asking which brand of triathlon wetsuit works the best for winter swimming. To be honest, I’m still figuring that out. From my understanding, all wetsuits are pretty much manufactured using the same types of neoprene. The key differences typically lie in the design and fit. So it’s important to try out various brands to see which ones work best with your body style.
One thing I can recommend, though, is to NOT invest in one of the more high-end (read expensive) wetsuits if you plan to swim during the winter. These tend to be constructed with much thinner neoprene and are much more prone to nicks and tearing – which are an enhanced risk during the winter months given the presence of ice in the water. So I’d advise going with the “clunkier” lower end models versus dropping seven bills on a snazzy wetsuit that collapses like papier-mâché in the cold water.
2. Neoprene Dive Hood (3mm/5mm)
These work great for swimming, and we’ve been able to get by with the standard varieties. I tried out a 7mm drysuit hood, and – while definitely quite warm – it was way too constrictive around my neck.
I wear a regular latex swim cap underneath the dive hood for an extra layer of warmth and to keep to colder water out of my ears. Other swimmers just don the hood and use silicone earplugs. Either way works.
One other item – for two seasons, I insisted upon tucking the hood bib into my wetsuit. I did this because the 32F water seemed like hot piano wire on the exposed band of skin around the base of my neck. However, this greatly reduced my swim range of motion and often let in cold water through open areas in my wetsuit neckline.
I’ve since switched to having the bib loose, and I’ve acclimated pretty easily to the cold water exposure on my neck. So I now recommend gutting it out the first few times in favor of a better overall swim experience.
3. Neoprene Dive Booties (5mm)
We’ve all had great luck with the 5mm booties. They seem to work pretty well in keeping our feet warm during the swim. Plus they’re pretty flexible and allow us to maintain a fairly decent swim stroke and kick.
I’ve experimented with two types – the zip up variety as well as the pull ons. The former are much easier to get on and off – which is a HUGE asset in the parking lot when you need to get out of your wet gear ASAP. But the zippers can chew away at the bottom of your wetsuit and shorten its lifespan considerably. They can also come unzipped during the swim causing a horrifying rush of cold water around your ankle that requires some pretty funky in-swim maneuvering to fix.
So we’re still experimenting with these.
4. Neoprene Dive Gloves (5mm/7mm)
This is an area where we’re also still experimenting. Nick and I use the XS Dry Five 5mm gloves. They’re slip ons, but they do a pretty good job of keeping out the water if placed on properly. The problem is that it’s often ridiculously difficult to put these on with one hand already gloved.
Dave and Mike use Deep See 5mm scuba gloves with velcro wrist fasteners. I used to use these and might go back since they are easier to put on and adjust. However, we all still have issues with cold fingertips during our swims, so what we use going forward might change once we find a better solution.
4. Eyewear
When I first started out swimming in the sub-40F water, I used a full-face Cressi freediving mask. However, since I’ve become much more acclimated to the cold water on my face, I now use a pair of wider view swim goggles – like Barracuda or AquaSphere. I put them on over my hood, and so far they’ve worked fine without leaking.
So there you have it!
This is the current setup that we use when we swim for 20-40 minutes in lake temperatures below 40F. And other than having numb fingertips on occasion, this setup works very well. We’re comfortable during the swim, and we can get in a challenging open water swim workout without over-stressing our bodies.
NEXT IN THE SERIES – Part 2: Pre-Swim Preparation
Be sure to keep checking the site for the next article in this series. In this one, I’ll go over the physical and psychological preparation you need to do to make the transition to swimming in these more extreme conditions. Many of these tips and techniques will also help you with acclimating to water temperatures that might not be as extreme – but are still colder than you’re comfortable with right now.
Here’s Dave, Mike, and Nick out at MSW getting in a morning swim in a blazing hot 37.5F Lake Michigan! I’m still fighting off a cold, so I can only pine away in envy at the sidelines…
Dave and Mike took advantage of the amazing weather earlier in the week to get in a swim at Tower Beach. They, of course, texted Nick and I letting us know we were missing out on near perfect swim conditions. Those cads!!!
The general consensus of this morning was that it was one of the coldest – if not the coldest – swim outing we’ve had since we’ve been doing this…
By the time we arrived at MSW, the west wind had picked up considerably, bringing with it some snow flurries to add to the fun. Nick had measured the lake temperature before we showed up, and the official reading came in at a bone-cracking 32.5F. We were already mostly suited up, so we quickly donned our gloves and hoods and trotted out to the ladder since our hands were already getting numb – and we hadn’t even gotten in the water yet!
I climbed down first and got in right away – and it was a pretty rude awakening. The water temperature was about even with the air, and we had that nasty west wind in our face right from the start of the swim. So I just buried my face in the icy waters and pounded out swim strokes.
Nick and Mike blazed past me, and I caught up with them by the lighthouse. I shot a quick video and stuffed my camera down the front of my wetsuit – which let in a torrent of very unwelcome 32F water. We all turned back, and – being the slowest of the three – I got to watch from a distance as Nick and Mike finished up and absconded the chilly lake in favor of their warm cars.
I finally made it to the ladder and snapped off a few more shots before trudging back to the parking lot. Once there, the deep freeze really set in as the wind intensified to a hearty gust that blasted us non-stopas we changed out of our neoprene in the unprotected parking lot.
Nevertheless, we survived the ordeal and bested the lake once again. And I’ll take a half-mile in this hell over a boring pool workout any day of the year!
Yet another strange adventure out at the lakefront…
Mike and I rolled into the park by Montrose Beach just before 8:00am, and something just didn’t seem right. A “German Shepherd” out in the park was running around without a leash, and it had a strange looking tail. Turns out it was a coyote! While we stood there gawking, it nonchalantly trotted past the car and down the road (probably in search of the even more elusive Midwest species of road runner).
Here is a pic and video clip:
After this brief encounter, we checked out the MSW swim area. I had to navigate through some treacherous snow on the steps down to the lakefront, but the lake itself looked just prime for swimming. Unfortunately, the rungs of the ladder were completely encased in ice, and I did not have a hammer with me to de-ice them (my bad)!
So since it was just the two of us, we shifted our geographic target farther north and decided to check out Tower Road Beach up in Winnetka. When we arrived there, we were relieved to find the narrow, downhill road mostly bereft of ice and snow. So we parked the car, geared up, and headed out to the lake.
The beach at this location drops off very close to shore, so we didn’t have to wade out a long distance to get into swimmable water. We did a fairly quick north-south swim parallel to the beach – about 1/2 mile total – and the clouds burned off mid-swim giving us a nice, blazing sun right in our eyes during the return leg.
Overall, we were quite comfortable in our winter swim gear – with the exception of our fingertips. They started to get cold as soon as we left the car and got exposed to the 20F air temperature. However, once we got in the 33F lake, they “warmed up” a bit and didn’t really start to squawk until the latter part of the swim.
And once again, we had to make do without a “recovery tent” out in the parking lot!
Lots of snow out at MSW!
January skyline
Iced ladder
Tower Road
Smooth and clear swim area!
Our new system for quick and efficient gear removal:
