A few days ago, I celebrated the new year by trying something totally new and different. I’m currently staying in a hotel on the beach in Varna, Bulgaria with some friends. The other day we noticed a couple of Romanian tourists splashing around in the waters of the Black Sea. There’s nothing unusual about that except it’s the middle of winter here and the water is ice cold!
I’ve heard of the Polar Bear Club in New York who traditionally jump into the ocean every year on New Year’s Day, but somehow I never was motivated enough to join them. In fact, Vic Boff, a well known body builder and health enthusiast in his day, had been encouraging me for years to join up. Anyway, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally take the plunge. Those Romanian tourists seemed to be having a lot of fun!
My friends and I went out to the beach and we met Karteek and Anugata who had been in the water and were just drying off. Both of them are English Channel swimmers and they said that the water was much colder than the Channel. They recommended that we walk in slowly to avoid the sudden shock, but we knew there was only one smart way to proceed – just rush to the water’s edge and dive in! And that’s what we did!
WOW! The water was COLD – so cold that it burned, but it felt absolutely awesome! We just shouted at the top of our lungs with excitement! Now I know it sounds like we totally lost it but, in our defense, I think the body must respond to the frigid temperature with high levels of adrenaline. Well, whatever the reason, we were exhilarated! We stayed in for about a minute until our hands and feet were numb. Then we sprinted out and frantically toweled off. But after I dried off, I just couldn’t get over how happy I felt. I impulsively threw down my towel and shot back into the water for a second time!
Since then, I’ve been going into the water everyday. It’s incredibly invigorating. Sometimes I go in alone, but it’s so much more fun to scream my head off with friends!
