July 4: I DID IT!

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July 4, 9:20 a.m., Coronado California, water temperature 55 degrees!!!!!

We awoke at 7:15 a.m. in our tent in my aunt and uncle's backyard, so I could run down to the beach and sign up for the Coronado Rough Water Swim. I had gone in the day before with Theo for a few boogie board rides and the water was frigid!!! My aunt instructed (via a party invitation): "Pray for Warm Water." The race the year before had been cancelled due to fog. On some level I think we were praying it would be foggy again. But it wasn't.

Instead, the water was unbelievably cold!!! The day before (when I had gone in, and thought it was cold) the water had been a balmy 61. It had dropped six degrees overnight. My aunt, the triathlete and all around tough and amazing woman, told me she was not going to do it. She told me to talk to the man who told her not to do it. He was a former Navy seal. He said his daughter had pulled him aside and told him it was dangerous, and plead with him not to swim.

I am clueless when it comes to cold water. When does hypothermia set in? How long can a person like me swim in extremely cold water? And why was I doing this? Because I was too much of a chicken to back out?

I went into the water up to my ankles and I could barely walk out of the water. It was hard to imagine willingly throwing my entire body into that for at least half an hour.

My aunt told me that the scary thing about hypothermia is that you don't realize you are getting cold. Your body just stops and your stroke slows down, and you go under.

There were lots of lifeguards (in wetsuits) around on jet skis and paddle boards. Still.

Jonathan just stood by listening, offering no opinion for or against. He knew better than to weigh in. I wondered if I was about to say good-bye to my children. But I just couldn't bail!

Then my aunt made an offer: borrow my wetsuit. She called my uncle, who picked up her swimming wetsuit, which had been specially made to fit her and flown in from New Zealand. It had Ironman printed across the chest. Cool! It was so tight that my uncle said that at the big races they have a hot blonde going around and helping men and women into the suits. It is exhausting. Not like a surfing wetsuit at all. You have to pull and tug and grab and wiggle and writhe on the ground and your hands begin to cramp from pulling it up. I only had minutes before the race was to start. But I felt like I had an armor of good luck. I was in a totemic suit, worn by my lucky Aunt Judy, and flown from afar. I would finish. She gave me an insulated cap, too.

The race guy told us to jump in before we started to acclimate or we could go into shock. So I did. And it was a shock. Even with a wet suit on.

I ran out, kissed my husband and boys good-bye in case this was the end. I was the wimp here. Many many swimmers swam au naturel. By donning a wetsuit I was taking myself out of the competition. The horn honked and we waded into the water. Not fast. Gingerly. Slowly. With dread. Pushed from behind by other swimmers filled with dread. We all walked as far as we could. The water was so cold I could not breathe. Even in a wetsuit. (Jonathan said some swimmers waded in, then turned right around and got out of the race) My feet were going numb and so was my face, my only exposed skin. I couldn't breathe normally for a quarter of a mile.

And then I was just lost in the murky, frozen water. On my own.

The swim itself wasn't hard. It was only the cold. And after a half mile I knew I would make it.

I rounded the final buoy, halfheartedly surfed a wave to shore, and ran on wobbly legs up the beach. Benji ran out and grabbed my hand and ran with me to the finish.

I did it!! My lips moved like they were still filled with novacaine, the arches of my feet were numb, but I did it I did it I did it!

The race organizers said the swim was the second coldest on record (though another swimmer said the coldest year was 2000, when "the guy died of a heart attack."

After the race other swimmers told me that Alcatraz had been 61 degrees last year! No problem!!! That's practically lukewarm!

Now all I have to do is overcome my fear of sharks through special visualization techniques!!!!