Submitted by Danny
After walking through the mean streets of Brixton, armed with only swimming hats and goggles for protection, we arrived at the lido in Brockwell Park. Taras arrived fashionably late after an arduous day of auditing in what he described as a “greenhousey” environment.
Changing into our swimming attire in preparation for 15/16 degree water temperatures for some odd reason was a very slow process; however not as slow as the descent into the pool!
Adam was protected by a thick layer of man hair and so entered the water with ease. Tarkan ‘The Machine’ being made of metal doesn’t feel the cold and merely dived in the deep end and started swimming, although he was a little rusty! Rosie was all ready and waiting in the pool leaving just Yvette, Taras and I to battle the elements. Yvette probably coped most admirably having head under water in 2 stages: up to waist, above waist within 3 minutes (rounding down.) Taras and I struggled slightly more between us going through roughly 20 stages and 20 minutes. I have to at this point sincerely thank the 9 year old boy who mockingly advised me “it gets better when you’re head is underwater,” as without those wise words and subsequent spontaneous loss of all ego I’m not sure if I would have made it in.
Once we were all under, the actually swimming became a luxury as we were relieved to get our muscles moving, however we all had to stop briefly every few lengths to catch our breath as we experienced the cold for the first time. At the end of a 45minute session (20 minutes of that adjusting) our bodies all reacted slightly differently to the cold. Some couldn’t feel their toes, some had back aches but we all felt dizzy as we came out the pool which can only be likened to being drunk. Once we had stumbled to the changing rooms we swapped the bitter cold for the bitter beer as is usual procedure!
No comments:
Post a Comment