The first why

Whenever people hear that I do cold water swims/bobbing, they tend to assume that I do it for the health benefits. I must confess that health had very little to why I started! In 2019 I was going to an early morning gym class and two of the guys in the class would do a quick dip before or after class. They invited the rest of the class to join and so some of us joined them on a few occasions. After say about a month of so, there were only 3-4 of us keen to do it.

Jim, one of the swimmers asked me to start a WhatsApp group for coordination and thus the Swimriser group was formed with 4 people. The WhatsApp channel was incredibly valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in many ways even though I was already a regular swimmer by then, it was during that time that I came to appreciate the sense of serenity and peace that being in the water brings. The joy of being in the water and kind of feeling part of nature and a bigger whole is probably why I keep doing it.

And I'm the only one left from the first group I joined, but the friendships and relationships forged in the water seems to remain! A new group formed in time and for the last 3-4 years there has been a core group swimming at 7am, and currently there is 27 people on the WhatsApp group.

Cold water plunging and swimming has become quite popular in the last few years and there is tons of research out on the benefits and protocols, and I'll write something about that soon.

Monday morning

Slightly later in the morning on Thursday. Photo credit Tria