I went for my fourth day of cold water swimming today and when I arrived there were a ton of people with intense cameras with super high power lenses. They were all pointing in one direction and when I looked, there was a bird. I asked and found out that it was a juvenile bald eagle! There's a nesting pair that lives by the lake - the one they were taking pictures of is about 10 months old. It was really amazing, it was flying around, looking for lunch, oblivious to the dozen or so people photographing it. At the end of the swim the adults were hanging out at a tree that they apparently love to perch on. I'm not sure I've seen bald eagles in the wild before, really cool.
The last time I went cold water swimming I over did it a little. I stayed in for 10 minutes, which is way too long. I was so cold after I had to go home and take a hot shower rather than warm up gradually. Today I only stayed in for 5 minutes, which I think is about right.
The ice shelf is broken up - I never got a chance to stand on it! But, the lake is frozen enough that we had to break through ice to get in. It was pretty funny because mystic merfolk were breaking the ice and the eagle photographers were like "what are you all doing?" and when we said "swimming!" the looks on their faces were priceless! I felt really cool. Getting into the water is hard, but once your in it isn't so bad. It feels so funky because you get numb on the outside and don't feel the cold as you exit the water. Of course, today was also pretty warm relatively speaking - it's in the 40's, though we did have a snow storm yesterday, so there was snow to trek through.
On Monday I went skiing at nashoba valley. It was like 60 out, so it got pretty slushy, but I was pretty happy with my skiing! I had a 4 hour ticket and got there at the opening, when it was quiet. I started out on the blue squares for the first hour and a half while it was quiet, working on my edges and turns. Then, I went down the blacks for about 2 hours! I was pretty impressed with me! As the day went on it got slushier and slushier - at first I was thinking I needed to wax my skis, but then I realized that it was the snow. When I was on the bottom of my skis I could feel me going faster than the skis, which is obviously concerning, so I really had to stay on my edges. I got up a lot more speed than I am used to, but was actually comfortable with it! It's a short mountain, but it's less than 40 minutes drive - hopefully I can get there a couple more times this season.
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