Day 45 - Do a Polar Plunge

Date: February 20th, 2010

Some friends may see the title of this entry and think "gosh, she's been talking about doing this forever, when is she going to get around to it".  And my answer is... yesterday!  Doing a polar bear swim or a polar plunge (basically jumping in freezing cold water) has been on my list since the beginning.  In Michigan, apparently, winter season is also swim-in-cold-water season.  I have seen polar bear swims or polar plunges every single day since I started my project.  However, they all had a couple things in common that kept me from doing them.

1. Jumping in cold water.  'Nough said.
2. They were far away.  I had enough trouble convincing myself to do it in the first place without adding a car trip to it.
3. I didn't see the point.  I mean, it was a new experience, of course... but its five seconds and, well, I can splash ice water in my face at home.
4. They were far away.  I found things closer that I wanted to do more, thus allowing me to chicken out, yet again.

The list goes on.  Taking a polar plunge, before this weekend, was one of the things on my list, quite frankly, as a stretch goal.  I didn't see myself doing it, but I wanted to be able to say I had.  Remember in yesterday's entry where I was all "indulgences are stupid... I'm a warrior... blah blah blah... look at me"?  Yeah, when there is cold water involved, that goes out the window.  I'm not going to lie... I was pretty darn nervous.

Then I found a posting online for a Special Olympics fundraiser, right in Ann Arbor.  It was a polar plunge where the plungers raised money (like you would for a fun run) and then jumped in for charity.  Well.  There goes excuses 2-4.  Since it was down to only one reason against jumping and tons of reasons for it, the time for excuses had passed.

A few days before (when I found out about the plunge), I solicited donations online.  I want to say thank you to those who gave some money.  It was wonderfully generous and it will help lots of people bond through sport and get to experience a sense of competition and accomplishment that they didn't before.  I mentioned in my note asking for donations that I had a great-uncle who participated in the Special Olympics.  It was clear, from seeing the pictures and talking to him about it even years later that it had changed his life for the better.

But there were hurdles to jump before the plunge (get it?  its a sports joke).  Because this was a charity event and not just part of a local fair or festival (like the others I found), I needed to find a costume.  So, technically I didn't need to find a costume.  I could've just jumped in my bathing suit.  But when someone says the word costume, I do NOT pass up the opportunity to look goofy.

 

I walked around Ypsilanti like this.

I decided, in the end, just to wear a bathing suit for the jump.  To be fair, it was a traditional Victorian bathing costume, but it was a bathing costume nonetheless.  Before the jump, my friend Ryan (who is amazing) went with me to a costume shop over in Ypsilanti called Fantasy Attic.  It is a place I had previously avoided, because, well, I mean, just look at the name of the store.  Its not that kind of costume shop, although I didn't go digging super deep.  It was an all-purpose shop for adult costumes.  By which I mean adult-sized costumes.  Assuming I do, at some point, LARP this year (if you don't know, don't ask), I will probably go there for the required attire.

Once we got checked in for the jump, it was immediately the scariest thing I'd ever gotten prepared to do.  I'm not kidding.  I do NOT like cold water.  I love water.  I'm actually ok with mildly cold water.  Freezing is so totally not my speed though.  They did some announcements - talked about how much money was raised - and had us line up against the wall to show off our costumes.  One person had raised $2100.  It was very impressive.  And... there were some great costumes on display.  

 

Business suit guy, Catwoman and Nemo are all quite composed.  I am not.

They told us we could do creative entrances into the water if we wanted to.  I thought about it for a second and realized that me going into the water was still not assured at this point.  I thought it was best to focus on not focusing on the petrifying hole in foot-thick ice that we were supposed to jump into.  Or, ya know, the EMT's standing by or the dive team there for people who might go into shock.  Best not to think about such things.

Then this ten-year-old went and jumped with his family.  I got embarrassed about even contemplating chickening out.  Here's this kid, not even hesitating.  He just walked up to the edge and went right in.  Granted that children can't feel cold - its a scientific fact.  It didn't change the fact, for me, that if I walked away, I'd be giving up on something that a ten-year-old had done.  Not since my Chess Club days have I suffered such humiliation.  Never again, I promised myself.  Never again.

 

Bishop to Queen 4?  I think not.

I went right after business suit guy, which was perfect because his entrance into the water was the funniest thing I ever saw.  He took a $1 bill out of his pocket and pretended to drop it into the water.  Then he yelled "oh no, my money!!!" and jumped in after it.  It was fantastic and it made me forget, for a moment, what was waiting just ten feet away.  They had the jumpers go in one by one because of how small the hole in the ice was.  It wasn't so tiny as to be dangerous, but it was definitely a one-at-a-time affair.

I told the guy ushering people over that I was nervous.  I believe my exact words were "oh man, I'm gonna die".  To which he responded, "that's ok, the dive team will fish your body out so we can keep going".  I wanted to be mad, but it was too funny not to laugh at.  It also calmed me down a lot.  If there was anything to be worried about, in all seriousness, he'd be more likely trying to calm me down than making fun of me.  The way I figured it, here was someone who had worked at events like this before and never seen a problem, so to him it was silliness for me to be so afraid.  And yes that's how my mind works.  I still hesitated at the line quite a bit.  The dive team motioned me over a couple times before I went.  It really was, for me, a lot scarier than I'd let on before doing it.

 

The dive team was amazing.

I ran into the water because, well, the way I saw it... once I got moving fast, the momentum would ensure that I didn't back out of jumping.  I was right.  Ten feet away I started running.  Five feet away I was still confident.  One foot away I changed my mind.  HAHA.  Too late.  The main dive guy immediately spotted me over to the ladder, which I appreciated because, well, I completely forgot about the concepts of up, down, air, cold, hot, snow, water, breathing, walking and swimming.  In other words... I became frozen goo.

Have you ever had literally every single part of you body feel freezing cold at the exact same moment?  That's what a polar plunge is like.  I noticed parts of my body I never noticed before (minds out of gutters, please).  The back of my knees felt cold.  My belly button felt cold.  The bottoms of my feet, near the heel, felt cold.  The nerves were so shocked by the water that I noticed them all at once.  That's when I understood why people do the jump.

It was the weirdest, most interesting feeling in the world.  It didn't hurt and it wasn't uncomfortable.  It was... for lack of a better word... cool.  As I was climbing up the ladder, all I could think was "the backs of my knees have never been cold before".  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they have been, but I never noticed.  My heart was beating faster, but not in a scary way.  People always say it was exhilarating.  That's a good word for it, but so overused that it loses a lot of the meaning.  For a split second as I went into the water, I could feel every single inch of my body at once.  My toes up to my head - I became aware of my entire body.

 

Pictured: Ice-cold truth.

Once I was out of the water, I noticed how warm the air felt and walked a little slower to enjoy the trippiness of that.  I mean, it was 35 degrees out.  I should not have felt warm, but I did.  They had a tent set up with "warm" showers.  I think if I ran my hand under the water before the plunge it would've felt like cold tap water, but compared to the lake, it was very pleasant.  It didn't take long for the shower to make me feel warm enough to step back outside and greet Ryan, who'd been wonderfully snapping pictures for me the whole time.

 

This is how I greet people sometimes.  That's normal, right?

There is only one thing I regret from the whole day.  Its not being scared and its sure as heck not overcoming that fear.  Its not that I hesitated or didn't do a funny jump or yell.  Its not that I didn't have the best costume or raise the most money.  No... I have but one regret...

 

I forgot to take off my shoes.

The polar plunge was amazing and the Ann Arbor plunge is not the last of the season for the Special Olympics.  They required a minimum contribution of $50 to jump (raised through soliciting donations) and there are a ton more going on over the course of the next two to three weeks around the northern parts of the US.  I would highly recommend jumping and doing it for charity.  The plunge itself is something everyone should experience in their lifetime and getting a chance to give something back to our community is always a great benefit!