I left the house at about 9:45. Another cold but beautiful morning here.

I’m listening to Do Hard Things by Steve Magness. I’m really enjoying this book but it’s not exactly what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be about building resilience by doing really hard things. Like climbing mountains, running through desserts, swimming in ice, etc etc. The interesting thing is that one of his main points is that that is exactly how you do NOT build resilience. That is the old school way of thinking. The same mentality that exposes high school football players to “hell week” and punishes poor athletic performers by having them do extra laps or some other physically undesirable exercise.

The book is more about the psychology behind actually enduring hard things so that you can endure hard things. You don’t drop yourself unprepared into some excruciating feat. Rather, you train your mind on techniques to make it more likely to endure. Then the hard thing might not be such a hard thing and you can more easily do the hard thing.

One thing I have been finding interesting is that a lot of the author’s techniques are the same as what I have come across in cold water swimming. I guess the one sentence summary would be to approach the stress of hard things mindfully. He talks about accepting and not fighting pain, being aware of the sensations in your body, creating an environment where you can make self directed choices regarding how you respond to stress, and having a “calm conversation” with yourself. He talks a lot about how to avoid going from stress directly to full blown freak out.

Anyways it’s a great topic of study for me now because we are now in the 50s in the water. It’s cold.

I get to the parking lot and today I go ahead and keep the sweatshirt on and bring the backpack with me. It’s about 60 degrees out with a growing south breeze. It’s very lovely.

When I get to the beach and feel the water, it definitely has that “summer is long gone” feel to it.

There is a small group of Sand Pipers running with the water as it rolls in to shore.

I set down my backpack and notice the the stack of rocks here on Tuesday has now collapsed. Hopefully nobody broke a foot.

As I make my way into the water, it is just so beautiful. It’s pretty clear here in the shallows and I see what I think is a sand shark shoot across the floor just a few feet away.

Surf is up a tad and I dive under a breaking wave into the cold water. I’m not sure if it is colder than Tuesday. It might be but I know it is not warmer.

As I swim under the wave I let the sensation of cold fill me and transform me. My body reacts. Blood is on the move to heat my organs. I feel good. I usually enjoy this initial state which lasts about the first half of a cold swim. Dopamine is releasing.

After a bit I see a group of Pelicans hover past me and I reach for my camera which I know is a lost cause. It takes several seconds to turn on and by then those Pelicans are long gone. As I tread in the water, it feels warm because the water is now still against my skin. I resume swimming and the cold flows again.

Throughout the swim I am focusing on the sensation of cold. I am continually asking myself, “am I suffering?” It’s a question I like to ask in cold water because the answer is usually “no” if I actually think about it. However, there is this visceral feeling of terror that wants to rise up and consume me. I wonder if this is some kind of evolutionary response that in prehistoric times would have helped me to flee to warmer environments. I examine the terror. Where is it coming from. I feel this cold and logically deduce I am ok but I can definitely recognize the “oh my god I’m gonna die” voice. I think this is the “full blown freak out” that Steve Magness talks about in Do Hard Things.

Of course it helps now that I have done this hundreds of times to know that I will be ok. I am also inspired by this podcast I listened to yesterday interviewing a Chilean open water swimmer Barbara Hernandez who has done all sorts of amazing swims. Se has swam in water just above freezing near glaciers. She has been stung by Man of War jelly fish losing the use of her legs and continued for three hours. The woman must eat nails for breakfast. You would think that she must be this super stoic, no-nonsense, “I will eat you and all of your children if you cross me” type of person. However, hearing her voice, she was super sweet and just lovely to listen to. When I hear her story and the stories of others who do similar things, suddenly I feel like I have an extra sense of empowerment to swim in this cold water. It’s like when the four minute mile was finally broken. It took centuries for a human to do it, but once it was done, runners started breaking it left and right. Once that thing we all thought was impossible is proven possible, its like a wall comes down and it becomes much more accesible.

So I keep swimming in this beautiful water looking for the edge between discomfort and fear. I take solace in my breath and ride on that edge. The edge of this very moment and this very feeling and this blue beautiful water.

I finish my swim and grab my backpack. I actually don’t bother toweling off and putting on my sweatshirt. It just doesn’t seem worth the trouble and the sun feels good on my skin. It does help though just knowing on a swim that my backpack is there. Steve Magness talks about being able to respond to a stressful situation via a healthy choice. I know that if I feel overly hypothermic, I can get to the beach and make myself warmer. Just knowing that I have that option gives me a sense of heightened control over the situation.

After I get home I check surfline to see if they have made any adjustments to the water temperature reading. It has been 61 for several days and I know it is not 61. Welp, what do you know, they have updated it - 62. No way! I immediately go to amazon and purchase a thermometer that will arrive Tuesday - taking matters into my own hands. Just who is running the ship there at Surfline?!