Are these people NUTS? Wait, are we some of these people?
A few weeks ago, Amye and I were out running errands and saw hundreds of people out on Lake Nokomis, which lies between us and the all important, one-two punch of a Home Depot and Target in the same shopping center. (Seriously, what else do we need?)
Curious, we detoured to investigate. It was some sort of pond-hockey competition, and we were at first completely horrified by the number of people out on the ice all at once, and then became slightly emboldened. We decided it might be fun to say we’ve walked on a frozen lake.
Now, this southern girl has no intention of drowning in a nearly frozen lake like some sort of southerner-moves-north cautionary tale. So we kept very much to the edges where, if the worst happened and the ice broke beneath us, we would be chastened, cold, and probably pissed off, but no more than shin-deep, and in no true danger.
By the next weekend, temperatures had warmed throughout the week, and the remainder of the pond hockey tournament as well as a few other lake-ice events around town had been canceled, truncated, or relocated indoors.
Then, a couple of weekends ago, my bonus son, Mies, and his girlfriend Maddie came for a visit. We spent the first night of their visit “up north” (y’all know how I love that term,) letting them get in some snowboarding at Spirit Mountain in Duluth. Somehow the subject of ice skating arose, and before you know it, we were picking up two additional pairs of inexpensive second hand skates, which are very easy to find around here.
A first.
Temps had gotten a little colder again, meaning out of the 40s and 50s and back down into the 30s and 20s. Lake Hiawatha, which is the one closest to my house and most often photographed by me, was frozen over, and has an easy entry point with a little beach area, so we decided to bundle up and give ice skating a shot. Again, I’m not about to become some rookie mistake story, so I cautiously kept to the edges.
Also, even though I grew up ice skating regularly and even took some figure skating lessons in college, I hadn’t been on skates in probably 10 years or more, and ain’t nobody got time to be broken. This is not freshly Zamboni-smoothed ice. This is ice that has been snowed on, rained on, has driftwood frozen mid-drift in it, and has perfectly round holes bored into it here and there either for ice-fishing or ice level checking. Outdoor ice. So again, I used a decent amount of caution.
I had never skated outdoors, and had never skated for free. Two firsts! It was lots of fun and I would do it again, but I’d like to skate on some smooth ice first to get familiar and comfortable on ice again. The following several days were warm (at least 40) and sunny, so the ice began to thaw. By the following weekend, there was no way any of us would have gotten on the ice.
Another first.
However, Mies is up for lots of adventures. He bought a used long board while he was here, and the second weekend of their visit, Maddie, Amye and I saddled up on bikes and Mies grabbed his long board, and we did a big loop around the city, hitting some sights and the Midtown Global market, which has a very cool multi-cultural food hall.
On our route, we passed something on Lake Harriet that I’d heard about but hadn’t seen. There is a hole in the ice that is kept open throughout the winter so that people can cold plunge. I’m fascinated by the potential (and largely yet unproven in any scientific way) benefits of cold plunging, but I’m not ready to take the plunge. If you recall from my post about achievable goals, which you can read here, a goal of mine is just to take a baby step in that direction.
But as I said, Mies is up for adventure. So…
He made it look easy! He said it was just what he needed after traversing about 12 miles on a long board all day. He has been taking a couple of cold showers per week for a while now, and he reported that, while it was more intense than his cold showers, it wasn’t all that different. When I sent him the video to preview and approve, he said it will be nice to have the video for times when he’s having an internal battle with bravery.
Inspired by his dunk, I took my first icy cold shower. In the winter, the cold water coming straight out of the tap is VERY cold. You know how warm the “cold” tap water is in Alabama in the middle of the summer? Yeah. Reverse that. I did it, though! I stayed in for four minutes. I have since taken a couple more, and will probably do it periodically. I can’t say it has changed my life yet, but I do think it helps me be very awake and on the chance it can help with metabolism or inflammation or any of the other purported benefits, I’ll likely keep at it. I don’t think it’s hurting me, and it’s certainly a regular test of my will and my ability to do hard things. That alone feels like a decent reason to continue, imho.
So who has done something new this winter? Let’s hear about it! Who has taken a cold plunge or an ice cold shower? What did you think?
Thanks for reading!
Great story, Laura!! So love hearing about your northern adventures. I have done three cold plunges. Two with friends and one with a group of earnest teenagers who wanted to see how many “dippers” they could get to come out a cold February day. I was counting the seconds until I could get out. For whatever reason, my friends are no longer interested in doing the cold water plunges so I don’t even have to feel like I should. They think it helped get over the pandemic blues. My son, Mitchell, Mies’s cousin, is a regular, almost daily dipper. He sees many benefits. Good for them:)
I stayed in for three minutes each time. Rivers in Idaho are fed by ice melt so they are cold. I did not feel like I got any benefit but I did not do the research in to the breathing that the guru, Wim Hoff, recommends:)