Polar Plunge 2016

Polar Plunge 2016!


For the last three years a group of friends and I have gathered together on New Year Day at nine in the morning in the freezing cold.

I’m not joking. I think there might have been one year that it was almost not freezing temperatures but otherwise we’ve been ringing in the New Year in 18 degree weather. That’s the AIR temperature folks. The water has actually been warmer at about 36 degrees.

We have been lucky to enjoy dry weather though, so we can’t complain too loudly. (Knock on wood)
But the sun was shining and the frost was glistening. There was a lot of frost, so there was also a lot of glistening:)

Linda, Dennis’s wife thinks we’re crazy but she still comes out to support us, cheer us on and this year watch Michaela while Josh and Chrissy ran the 5k portion and jumped.
Who doesn’t want to hold a warm cuddly snuggle bug? Certainly not Linda:)

I gave very confident directions to everyone before we headed out on our run. Running Buddy Amy even came! We had a great time running together again, and to make the reunion more authentic I made a wrong turn and we ended up running just a bit longer than we intended.

Josh was running slightly behind the group and saw us go the wrong way and just thought to himself “where are they going?” and then he ran the correct route.

It worked out that we ran long though since it took until the last 600 meters to get feeling in our fingertips.

I went back out to make sure everyone made it back in. Dennis was also looking out for the other runners. (It’s always nice to know that someone else is counting heads.) What he didn’t know was that the two runners he was looking for made a wrong turn and cut through on a different street. It worked out for me because we got to run in together. I like running with him.

We all gathered on the dock and that was when I realized that for the first time we didn’t have a crowd of spectators taking photos for us! I hung back as well as Josh (he was videotaping everything on his GoPro) while everyone else jumped so I could take photos.

Right after everyone else jumped we ran down the dock and two feet from the end I realized I was still wearing my glasses! I was able to ditched them at the last second at the very end of the dock right before I jumped.

Man alive did I SCREAM when I surfaced! The water SO COLD! If you listen carefully you can hear me scream on the video while Josh is still underwater. I got brain freeze from it even though I was only under for a fraction of a second. It really is impressive on how fast everyone can move when they’re trying to get out of the water:)

As we were all dancing around trying to shake the blood back into our fingers and toes I decided that I really wanted a photo of my cannon balling into the water.

Sam apparently has no nerve endings as well as an adventurous spirit and said he would jump again with me. It would be his THIRD jump of the day. On the video you can see his and Mark jump a second time right after their first jump.

I didn’t get the shot, but I WILL next year, I just couldn’t bring myself to jump a third time:)
I bet Sam would have jumped again though.

After the plunge we all went inside, changed and had breakfast together. Even though I had changed into dry clothes I couldn’t seem to get warm and was shaking like a Chihuahua. I guess I looked ridiculous enough that Eric got me some hot water to drink and Karen lent me her down coat so that I would warm up and stop shaking. I didn’t FEEL all that cold, but I certainly LOOKED cold.

This is one of my favorite events that we do together. I really love the spirit of the event. Getting together and celebrating the new year with friends and doing something spontaneous.