Spring Swim

The ice has been off the lakes for a number of weeks, and today was quite hot. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the water is warm. But there's nothing quite like swimming in the open water, so . . .

Since there was a softball game last night, I knew that after the game I would be warm enough to swim. I wore my suit under my shorts and T-shirt, and I was warm after the game, but the water was cold!

According to the world wide interweb, the lake temperature was 54°. Now normally I swim at the beach, walking in a bit at a time. But when I asked my fellow softball players who else wanted to swim, someone said yes, which is quite unusual.

However, she wanted to jump off the nearby dock because she got challenged to jump in the water for some cancer charity. So we jumped off the dock together. And the water was COLD! I came up shouting and gasping for air and swearing. That was all somewhat involuntary.

It was clear to me that if I had gone in at the beach, I wouldn't have made it past my knees. I'm just not that much of a masochist. On the other hand, it was quite invigorating, so I'm glad I did it.

It's a reminder that we should jump in the deep water sometimes in life, no matter the water temperature.


PS I can't quite believe it after my last softball post, but we won last night, 6-4. We were all cheering until one team member said, "We should try and act like it's happened before."