New Year's Polar Plunge

We celebrated the New Year with a little party and polar plunge! We had a pretty good turnout for the event, about 50 or so. It was a fun way to start the year. I made gingerbread cookies and these chocolate mermaid tails and there was dancing and a fire and photos. Super fun start to the New Year.

For NYE I did an online yoga that started at 10 pm and ended right at midnight. It was a new studio in NYC, I really liked the teacher - she made the class a little reflective and a little bit of a workout (but not too crazy). Definitely one of the best ways to spend the last day of the year. 

Today, of course, I decided that I want to lose a little weight that I've gained this year, so back on the old diet. Not too psyched about it, but my pants are getting really tight, and I so don't want to have to pull out the fat pants. 

First Ski of the Season

I bought a five pack for Nashoba for the winter. I definitely wanted to get in a ski day this week while I'm on vacation, and today looked like the best day - it's been cold, but it's getting a little warmer and I figured the snow would melt. So, I made a 9 am reservation for skiing, and was the first one on the slopes!

There were initially only two trails open (plus the bunny slopes), but that was actually OK because there weren't that many people skiing. They had one blue and one black diamond. I spent most of the day on the blue, with a few on the black (Nashoba style black, which is to say, not really that steep. I worked on trying to keep my skis a little more together, bending my knees, making less wide s's, and trying to get comfortable with going a little faster. I think I made some progress. By the end of the four hours, I was feeling really comfortable on the blue, and going a bit faster. Still kind of nervous on the black - work in progress. 

Later I went for a swim. Today was day 37 in a row. The water is down to 36! It's not going to get too much colder. I stayed in for 10 minutes. There was a beautiful sunset, the clouds were all pink and swirly. It was so nice, even though I was kind of cold.

Yesterday we did a field trip to the ocean, to the beach at Pleasure Bay. The water was warmer - about 39. It was really great just floating around in the salt water. I felt so buoyant! People walking around were pretty impressed. Also, a friend of one of the swimmers is a coach, and she's going to give me some swim tips! Super excited because I've been looking for someone to give me pointers, and here she just fell into my lap.

Merry Christmas

I was thinking about Chinese food and a movie for the day, but then I decided I really just wanted to make pancakes and binge Modern Family. And go swimming of course (and I did stairs and ran around a bit outside to get some aerobic exercise). And I'm glad I did! Today was day 34 of dipping in a row. The water is down to 37 degrees, air was about 20. I still stayed in for over 10 minutes! While we were swimming, the bald eagle flew over us really low, like he was just making sure we weren't good for dinner. After I was freezing - thank heaven for my heated gloves.

I'm on staycation for the week - so nice to chill and relax and not really have to do anything. I have a few projects - keep swimming (of course), I got a new puzzle, I have to take my car in (again, for heaven sake - it's like I hit 100K miles and it's falling apart), I'm going to sew a quilt for my new niece (so exciting!), do yoga, and maybe read a book.

Cold water swimming really is a bit of an addiction! It's such a rush, and it feels so great when I'm in the water - I love the feeling of my body being so cold as I bob around. We are still diving in off the dock, and I feel like I might be able to through the winter. I can't wait for there to be ice.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with some cat ladies to develop a plan for Tigger and her behavior problems. I hope they are able to help.

I realized recently that this blog is over 10 years old! Go me - even if I no longer run, it's still pretty great that I'm exercising.

22 Days of Dipping, and still going!

After going swimming 7 days in a row, I decided to keep going and see how long a streak I could get. I'm up to 22 days after todays swim! Every time I think that I will let it go, I just can't. I wasn't going to go swimming today, but I took a personal day and decided that the weather was too nice to skip. It was 40 and sunny, and really nice out of the wind. I went by myself and just stayed in for 5 minutes. Water temp is about 41.

It's been so fun doing all these dips! I've gone with a bunch of different people. Sometimes a big group, sometimes just me. Once there were some guys fishing, and they didn't believe I was going to jump in until I did. Pretty much every day I dive in, which is awesome because the first time I decided to dive I got scared and jumped. But now it's no problem. So far, I don't feel any urge to gasp as I get in. I'm going to see how low a temp I can get to still diving. 

I've been doing this Lyme vaccine clinical trial (which, yay! about time they are developing a vaccine for Lyme.) I would pretty much go anywhere for the vaccine - it's so easy to get, and miserable to have. But, the amazing part is that they are paying me! I used money from my first visit to get heated gloves for post swimming. I had my second shot today, and I may use the money for heated socks. It's such a silly thing to spend so much money on, but I think it should be fun money. And I love those gloves.

We are starting to prepare for and think about the winter swim fest. It's going to be so cold! It will be another 10 degrees or so colder in the water, and probably even colder outside. Sometimes, I'm like "what was I thinking?" Other times, though, I think it's not that cold. When I'm swimming with other people I usually stay in for about 10 minutes. My hands and feet feel really cold - I did just get some thicker swim gloves, so they are less cold. Otherwise, though, I am cold but it's not unmanageable. I am going to look for some swim lessons and to improve my swimming skills, because I feel like I could do more with this. Maybe if I can get the swim speed up I could do an ice mile one day?

A Week of Dipping!

I've done seven days of dipping in a row, and I'm going to try to keep going! Most of the dips have been with at least one other person, but today, like Thanksgiving, I went on my own. It's a different ballgame, because I just go there, jump in, swim around for 5 minutes, get dressed and leave. As opposed to waiting for everyone to arrive, choreographing a dive routine, dipping, getting out, eating chocolate, sitting in someone's car warming up, and then leaving like 3 hours later - which of course is also fun. Yesterday I was hanging out with this woman in her car before swimming, and we were watching this pontoon boat coming across the lake, and just chatting about it - like, why does someone have a pontoon boat on such a small lake, and was it battery powered, etc. When it stopped at the dock, we realized that Santa was on the boat! Apparently he was coming from a Christmas party at this club on the lake - so funny! We got a picture with him. I'm not sure if there's really any long term effect of all the dipping, it seems to help my sleep and stress levels. 

Today I had the day off and instead of going for a nice hike like I was hoping, I took my cat to the vet. She attacked me a couple times - it was pretty scary actually. Now I know how poor Rufus feels. Anyhow, he thinks it's her thyroid, but the numbers don't make it seem like she needs meds yet. I bought her a supplement from Chewy - we will see if it helps. 

PS. Water is around 47 degrees!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to my reader. :) It's been a minute since I posted, but I've still been swimming, doing yoga and parkour. The water in the lake is getting cold again - it's down to 48. I've been swimming for three days in a row now - it's weird how much I like it when it's so cold! Today I stopped by the lake on my way to my sister's for Thanksgiving. When I got there, this guy told me that there was some ice on the lake already! He'd been kayaking and I think thought swimming was a bad idea. I thanked him politely, and went and down to the water. Since it was just me, I was able to get there, lay out my stuff, strip to my swim suit, and jump in. I've been jumping off the dock lately because it's so much easier - you just have to be decisive for one step and then your in the water. I do try to breathe out to make sure I don't gasp in air. Will have to see how long I can do this.

I stayed in the water for just 5 minutes, got out, dried off, got dressed, and left. It's at the point where my skin feels cold and a little numb, but not freezing. Getting out of the water feels warm because I'm a little numb, but it's not so numb that I can feel my skin.

I made two pies - pumpkin cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and a sour cream and turmeric glaze. My sister was like "turmeric is so healthy!" Tee hee. And an apple pie. I'm only pescatarian 364 days a year (except leap year, which is 365) and I have to say I ate a lot of turkey, and it was delicious! I even carved it and didn't mind.

One of my cats has a bad case of food aggression. I'm going to try some CBD oil to see if it helps. I should take her to the vet I suppose, but we were there just a few weeks ago, and her blood work was fine.  

Beach yoga and a Baptism

I've never seen anyone be baptized before, so it was kind of fun to have a baptism at the beach! One of the new swimmers is a yoga instructor, and she offered to do a 20 minute restorative class on the beach. There was actually a pretty good crowd, probably about 20 or so of us, which isn't that common for our winter swims. The beach is a little bit hilly, which added to the intensity of the yoga, because we were tilted downhill for our dogs and planks. We started the class by setting an intention and doing some gentle stretches, which felt really nice on the beach in the sand. Then we did some cat cows and sun salutations.

As we started moving, the church group came down to the water - I think they were surprised to see a yoga class on the beach. They had a little ceremony and the four guys who were being baptized gave speeches, and then they went into the water. There were two guys who did the dipping, and a woman who was in the water taking photographs. The first guy walked in, and we could hear them doing some prayers, and then they dunked him! Everyone from the church group clapped, and the yoga group all paused our warrior 2 and clapped too. The four went in one at a time, and we clapped for all of them. It was a pretty funny day at the beach. (There were a few people there who were just there to be at the beach, and they were like "WTF?")

The church ceremony ended right around when the yoga class did. They all left and we changed into our swimsuits and went for a swim/dip. I'd already been to a kind of killer parkour class, so I just went in and treaded water without swimming. It was about 61 degrees in the water.