cold and dry sissy or cold and wet manly man?

swim report, friday december 16th, noon: claudia, ralphio, lftc and not another soul in sight, even the guards were locked in their hut. why? winds, that's why, high winds, heavy winds, blow hard winds and cold! my bottle of sunblock sitting on the deck table couldn't stay still, ladies in fur coats and tall suede boots, guys in coats and gloves and us, standing around wearing speedo's and goosebumps! why am i doing this? why? big wind chop, 2-3 feet at least, we could see nothing but water and had to kick on our backs several times to navigate and recover from gulping salt water.  my watch read 59 right outside the cove, 57 solid for the duration. we swam to almost the marine room, the air was colder than the sea. man alive, it was hard to get in today. i felt like i was between a rock and a hard place: go and suffer or don't go and suffer, stand in the water to acclimate and suffer in the wind or jump in immediately and suffer from shock. claudia was not going to relent but i tried, we could have easily went for hot chocolate but these people, YOU people are tough! the overall swim? awesome, kick ass, fun and challenging. when we ran up the stairs, (okay, slogged) we ran into another tough group; hove, vic and chris gearing up to go out and be manly men.
that's the thing for me, i sometimes find it easy to NOT want to go, weather, rough conditions, no partner, my phone rings, whatever, but when i just act as if i'm going and get there, i have never one time been disappointed. the opposite in fact, every single time.  so thanks to claudia and ralph for being manly men today and throwing me out there, you all should go out too. join us in the awesome misery!  besides, i miss you!
lftc-out