Em's Blog

Cold water swimming & other things

As I mentioned after my trail run, Kyle suggested a few weeks ago that we go for an early morning swim. In the middle of winter. It was freezing. And yet I felt pretty good after it.

So we've kept doing it. One day of the weekend we go for a very cold swim once we're both up. The goal is to spend at least five minutes in the water1. I think you definitely feel better (and a lot colder) after it. There's a nice kind of high after a cold swim.

And my view point on it is beginning to be backed by science. Apparently cold water exposure (like ocean water in winter or cold showers) is linked to a number of benefits, such as: better mental health, lower stress, higher immunity and easing muscle pain/soreness.

Kyle has been cold showering every morning for the last three years2, so for him it's a walk in the park. For me it involves a certain amount of complaining about the cold before I agree that I am having fun. Today we even managed to convince some friends to come along and it ended up being a ripper of a morning for it.

It's often windy here but this morning it was still. We grabbed coffee after our swim and spent some time soaking up the morning sun.

After coffee Kyle and I went to the farmers market and I'm both amazed and embarrassed that it's taken me five years of living here to finally go. I stayed strong and managed to resist the temptation of poffertjes3 and we did our weekly veggie shop at the market instead of at Coles. Also eyed off some really nice looking wholemeal sourdough which might have to replace the Coles one we buy at the moment. Hoping we'll replace as much of our supermarket shopping as possible with some fresh market produce!

It's been a nice lazy Sunday since then. A day for meal prep and changing the bedsheets and reading a good book.

Other than having a very nice Sunday, lately I've been:

I've been thinking a lot lately about how lucky I am to live here. And how crazy it feels that I likely have less than a year left here now.

I might not ever get to live this close to the water again. I might not ever get to live here again. And I love this life. I have friends that I love and I have favourite running routes and coffee shops and places to buy croissants, and record shops. I know all the best side streets to find parks near the beach in the middle of summer. I know which streets to avoid even when Google Maps tells you to drive down them, because I know they result in having to turn across three lanes of traffic and I hate that. I can rank a lot of the local pubs by the quality of their pub trivia nights and I have a book club I love and I can tell you where to the closest to the city unpaid parking spot is and which secondhand bookshops are the best (and which one to enter at your own risk because the owner is a bit grumbly).

So I'm also reminding myself frequently of how lucky I am to be here, and how lucky I am to have an idea of how much time I have left here, because I think it's working as a reminder to make the most of it. To keep getting up for the early morning swims even though it's the middle of winter and it would be much easier to stay in bed.

Signing off as one sleepy, very happy and very grateful girl.

-- Em

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  1. I made the mistake of going to get out the first time and Kyle said to me "what are you doing? We still have a minute and a half left", which is how I learned we were apparently staying in for five minutes.↩

  2. It's a no from me, personally, but the science does back up all the positive things he says about it.↩

  3. Admittedly only because I had already had an almond croissant with my coffee...↩