TOR-TURE TORCHURE TORCH ER

Swim report for the absent, 12-16-12, 11:30-Leonard who is the man, Steph who is the man, Steve who is the man, Claudia who is the man, Laura who is the man met under grey skies and sudden wind whipping up instant wind chop because why not? 
I asked the universe about this and the universe laughed in my face. HA! it said. It then kicked sand in my face. 
I was already questioning my sanity when donning ski wear-TO GO SWIM: my big parka, knit hat, wool boots and warmwear underwear.  Then I had to take it all off, there I was, standing on the beach in a stupid Speedo trying to fight off wind chill by hugging myself with my arms. I looked to the right and saw several surfers and a swimmer in full wetsuits, I felt so much less than brave, what's the word..oh yeah, crazy. I have a problem, something is so so wrong with me and Dave was right when he said cold water swimming could be used as torture. Take a criminal, strip them down to undies, make them wade out and then swim far into cold, dark seas with unseen but ever present marine predators, no life preservers, possible rescue only when near death and maybe maybe not even then. I mentioned Dave's theory to Leonard, he said it was too harsh to be used as torture. But here we all go tip toeing into torture, willingly! I made brownies for after! Celebrating the torture! I told you I had a problem!
It was very tough today, Steph is not too familiar with this level of crazy so she suffered a little cold shock, cold shock is what makes the sane people turn back. Not us, we pressed on, making sure she passed the 2 or 3 minutes required to settle down. Poor human organisms, trying so hard to save itself, instincts tell us to go back, get out, stop breathing with your face so close to the water! Shiver, experience pain, warning, warning, warning! But no, we tell the human organism to go have a great big cup of STFU and march on. We get out to the pink buoy, we are shores side, and head North, the water is very clear here and my watch recorded 60 degrees. Steve had a full wetsuit and giant fins so see you later, Steve! Leonard was immersed in some kind of stroke work? Speed work? He mentioned a mile and a half. Whatever, dude, have fun with that, I'm down for 10 minutes, max. Claudia was much more positive, suggesting we have fun first then we can get out. Whatever, dude, I'm down for 10. We blazed along for much longer than 10 minutes, I do love the misery-then Steph and I turned back, the 'others' kept going. Whatever, dudes, I'm outta here. No brownies for you! We made it back, dumped hot water on our heads from my bottle that was sent directly down from heaven itself and ate brownies. The 'others' brownies too. 
So after all this info, after this report on the sheer freaking delight of this swim, where were you guys? Haven't we all felt good about being hard core, year round, bad ass swimmers? We all have to suffer because misery loves company, you are all accustomed to cold shock, there are no excuses. 
lftc-out