Cold wa­ter swim­ming draws one back home

copy­right the Chron­i­cle Jan­u­ary 28, 2015

by David Dud­ley

NEW­PORT — Though Brynna Kate Tucker was born and raised in Sut­ton, it did­n’t oc­cur to her that swim­ming in cold wa­ter might be the thing to do un­til she moved to Brook­lyn, New York.

“In No­vem­ber of 2006, one week be­fore my birth­day, I joined the Coney Is­land Po­lar Bear Club,” Ms. Tucker said, via phone. “I’ve been swim­ming every week since.”

Her mat­ter of fact de­liv­ery might raise some eye­brows, but there are nu­mer­ous ben­e­fits to cold wa­ter swim­ming and bathing. She says that, among other things, it’s a great con­ver­sa­tion starter.

“Peo­ple never for­get you when you say that you’re a cold wa­ter swim­mer,” Ms. Tucker said. “Of course the first ques­tion I al­ways get is, Is­n’t that cold? The ob­vi­ous an­swer is, Yes!”

Still, thou­sands of peo­ple like Ms. Tucker take to frigid wa­ters when win­ter comes.

Though North Amer­ica is only now com­ing to em­brace cold wa­ter swim­ming, which is a tra­di­tion in other coun­tries such as Rus­sia and China, the in­au­gural United States Win­ter Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships will be held in New­port, from Feb­ru­ary 21 to 22.

Phil White, di­rec­tor of King­dom Games, is or­ga­niz­ing the event. Though he is also an out­door swim­mer, Mr. White did­n’t get the idea un­til he saw the New­port Parks and Recre­ation De­part­ment work­ing with their ice saw.

“I won­dered how we could use that,” Mr. White said. “It oc­curred to me that we could hold a cold wa­ter swim­ming event, but I did­n’t want to jump in with­out the right kind of help.”

Mr. White put out a mes­sage on Face­book. Be­fore long a re­ply came: “Are you se­ri­ous?”

“One swim­mer had just re­turned from Rus­sia, and wanted to see this event hap­pen,” Mr. White said. “That’s how it all started.”

As of this writ­ing there are 30 par­tic­i­pants reg­is­tered. They will come from all over the world: Japan, Latvia, Rus­sia, Fin­land, Aus­tralia, and Chile.

Ms. Tucker is one of them. She signed up for the 25-me­ter breast­stroke. Though she has braved the At­lantic Ocean on many oc­ca­sions, she knows that Lake Mem­phrem­a­gog is a whole other world.

“I was born in the North­east King­dom, af­ter all,” Ms. Tucker said. “It’s like a whole other weather sys­tem. And we’ve never had to cut through the ice at Coney Is­land. So it will be a whole new chal­lenge.”

For Ms. Tucker, it’s all about en­durance.

“Be­cause I’ve been do­ing this for some time, I know more or less what my body can take,” Ms. Tucker said.   “Cold is cold. But even lit­tle dif­fer­ences in de­grees make a dif­fer­ence when you’re do­ing this.”

Ms. Tucker said that her body may go numb af­ter ten min­utes in wa­ter that’s 36 de­grees Fahren­heit. But it may go numb much faster if the wa­ter is, say, 31 de­grees Fahren­heit.

Though Mr. White is spear­head­ing the ef­fort to bring com­pet­i­tive cold wa­ter swim­ming to the North­east King­dom, he con­fessed that he’s never braved the frigid wa­ters of Lake Mem­phrem­a­gog.

“I’m ex­cited about win­ter games,” Mr. White said. “And I’m ex­cited to see Lake Mem­phrem­a­gog get around the world. This event will hope­fully bring busi­ness to the area, and lend New­port a sense of vi­brancy dur­ing the long win­ter sea­son.”

Ms. Tucker said that she is not par­tic­u­larly fond of the win­ter, nor cold.

The In­ter­na­tional Ice Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion re­quires that bod­ies of wa­ter be 41 de­grees Fahren­heit, or colder. Ms. Tucker claims to have been in wa­ter that was at best 31 de­grees Fahren­heit.

Many peo­ple seem to think that win­ter swim­mers have some se­cret that pro­tects them from the cold, Ms. Tucker said. They don’t.

“Win­ter is hard for me,” Ms. Tucker said. “But cold ac­tu­ally feels good. When we’re in­jured, we put ice on the af­fected area, right? It’s the shock of the cold that gets us.”

Ms. Tucker used get­ting into the wa­ter for the first time as an ex­am­ple.

“You lose your breath,” Ms. Tucker said. “But once you get past that, once your body ad­justs, it’s not so bad.   When you get out, it feels won­der­ful, in­vig­o­rat­ing. Es­pe­cially if the sun is shin­ing. You can feel the sun’s warmth on your skin. It’s amaz­ing.”

Though she’s set to com­pete at Lake Mem­phrem­a­gog, Ms. Tucker said that cold wa­ter swim­ming has led to more con­nec­tions than ri­val­ries. Be­sides join­ing the Coney Is­land Po­lar Bear Club, she also joined the Coney Is­land Brighton Beach Open Wa­ter Swim­mers of New York City.

“There’s a real sense of ca­ma­raderie be­tween us,” Ms. Tucker said. “Though we come from all walks of life, we watch out for one an­other. I’ve met so many peo­ple I would­n’t have met oth­er­wise.”

Then there are the health ben­e­fits.

Though the dan­gers of cold wa­ter swim­ming are the stuff of com­mon sense — cold wa­ter re­sponse may lead to hy­per­ven­ti­la­tion, and thus drown­ing — the po­ten­tial health ben­e­fits are less well-known.

John Du­rant, au­thor of the Pa­leo Man­i­festo, was a mem­ber of the Coney Is­land Po­lar Bear Club. He claimed that cold wa­ter swim­ming stim­u­lates ther­moreg­u­la­tion, which im­proves blood-flow and boosts the im­mune sys­tem.

“I al­most never get sick,” Ms. Tucker said. “And that’s say­ing a lot. I work at the Pratt In­sti­tute, a col­lege in New York City. So I know I’m do­ing some­thing right.”

Cold wa­ter swim­mers also be­lieve that win­ter swim­ming and bathing helps re­lieve pain for those with rheuma­tism and asthma.

For Ms. Tucker, cold wa­ter swim­ming also be­came a point of con­nec­tion for her fam­ily. Since telling her Dad, David Tucker, of her love for cold wa­ter swim­ming, he has joined her on a num­ber of swims.

“I did­n’t know what my Dad would say when I told him that I was go­ing to swim in dan­ger­ously cold wa­ter,” Ms. Tucker said. “But he joined my club for a swim the fol­low­ing Thanks­giv­ing.”

“When she first told me I thought, This is crazy,” Mr. Tucker said. “Then I went down and joined her. We’ve spent three Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­days swim­ming to­gether.”

Though win­ter swim­mers achieve a cer­tain high, Ms. Tucker said that she’s not nec­es­sar­ily an adren­a­line junkie.

“This is the only ex­treme sport I do,” Ms. Tucker said. “It’s the only ex­treme sport where you can keep con­trol. I won’t jump out of a plane. Once you leap, you can’t turn back. With this, I de­cide when to en­ter the wa­ter, and when to get out. I have com­plete con­trol.”

con­tact David Dud­ley at david­dud­ley@gmail.com

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