New York Times: The air is never to cold to exercise and that includes swimmers

Anthony and I are going to be competing in the Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim in less than 6 months from now. He insists that I am capable of swimming it without a wetsuit. I say he is full of bologna but this article says he is right.

Snippet: “...The big question was, ‘Is it ever too cold?’” Dr. Castellani said. “The answer is no. People go to the poles, people are out there when it’s minus-50 degrees, people do incredible things, and safely. There really isn’t a point where you can tell people it is not safe anymore.”

Dr. Timothy Noakes, an exercise physiologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa who was a reviewer of that position paper, even supervised a swimmer, Lewis Gordon Pugh, who swam 1 km or (.62 miles) in 19 minutes at the North Pole last July, in water that was between 29 and 32 degrees. [...]

"... But lungs are not damaged by cold, said Kenneth W. Rundell, the director of respiratory research and the human physiology laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa. No matter how cold the air is, by the time it reaches your lungs, it is body temperature, he explained. ..."

Exercise induced asthma, which I sometimes suffer, is addressed in this article as well. It's not the temperature of the weather that gives you the exercise induced asthma, it is the lack of humidity that causes exercise induced asthma. A study is explain therein. [Link]

Here is a Sydney Morning Herald link to the Lewis Gordon Pugh expedition swim of a 1000 meters at the North Pole. [Link]