First technical malfunction of the challenge

Seven days since my last swim and a drop in water temperature of almost 2 degrees. However the sun came out as I arrived and I was looking forward to getting in. And then…… disaster struck, I managed to split my faithful pink hat. In fairness it’s not the first hat I’ve had since I started swimming in the winter. Those who have known me for a long time will know that the long hair is a relatively recent lockdown transformation. So the thin rubber hat that I currently use is designed for long hair and has slightly larger moulds around the ears to collect two clumps of hair and keep it relatively dry.

Initially I thought there was no way I wanted to swim in 10.5 degrees of water doing front crawl with no hat. But then I figured I’d cycled down, I’m raising money for a good cause, so I went for it. It was the most excruciating ‘ice cream head’ I’ve experienced and I wasn’t sure I could keep going for the minimum distance of 250m, which is the shortest distance that counts in the Polar Bear challenge. However as my head started to numb nicely, I managed 500m, bringing this month’s total to 2,500m, leaving only 500m to go.

I was also joined again by David Griffiths from Winterfest and we had a lovely hot drink together in the excellent Lido Cafe on Promenade Way after the swim.

I have already ordered a replacement cap though so hope that it will have arrived before my next planned swim on Monday, as I’m not intending to make a habit of capless swims in the winter!