Alaska-Fairbanks women's swim team was profiled by The Morning Call. Look at the adversity they go through just to get to the pool in the morning:"...''You have to be very determined,'' Lemley said. ''Every swimmer gets up at 4:30 and swims at 5:30. When you walk from your apartment to the pool and it's 40- or 50-below and your head hurts after the first 30 seconds outdoors, you have to be determined. ..."
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My favorite part was the coach being worried that the 50-degree temps in Pennsylvania would spoil them.
I would love to hear some stories about Sweden, Norway or Finland in regards to what swimmers there have to go through to get to the pool.
9 comments:
damn, tony... i can't believe you scooped me on this one. I might have to post anyway. I had some cold morning walks to the pool when I was a kid, but none like the time we landed the plan in Fairbanks and the pilot said "It might feel like 80 below out there with the wind chill, but it is actually a balmy minus 40."
Tony,
As a Dane, I have to say, it won't be close to as bad for most scandinavians to get to the pool. The winters in the majority of the populated areas in Sweden, Norway and Denmark is milder than in the northeastern United States. Even Iceland has a fairly mild winter on the coast.
I don't think you're going to find swimmers fighting through more cold in the morning than these Fairbanks swimmers.
WOW! You should tell stories like that on your blog!
Agree with Chris - it's not that cold in the scandinavian countries.
Excuse my ignorance but it seems to me that any place that is dark for 2-months out of the year, is located at the top the world, is synonymous with white skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, would tend to be a bit chilly during the winter months.
Well I swam in Edmonton, Alberta which, as it shares the same latitude with Moscow, gets chilly in the winter. After practice on a cold day (around -20C or -4F) you'd keep your tuque off for about a minute and then you would be able to scrub the ice out with your fingers and brush it for a nice dry head of hair. Caution: if you try doing that with long hair you're risking having some break off in your hands :(
P.S. Some related trivia. Last year a girl from the Yukon, Alexandra Gabor made Canada's national swim team (first swimmer ever from the three territories). Up there it is considered unusually cold only when it dips close to -40, the temperature where fahrenheit and celsius cross paths. At that temperature the cold starts becoming physically painful. I shiver at the thought of just getting into a frozen car in order to get to practice, much less coming out into what would be veritable deep freeze afterwards.
Trying swimming in Edmonton or Saskatoon... Or Winnipeg. I remember a meet at the University of Alberta, back when the blocks (Metal) were by this big picture window at the end of the pool: The blocks got so cold that it felt like your feet stuck to them!
We used to finish work-out, go outside and our hair would freeze.
I am going to post your cold water stories in a post tomorrow
When I was a senior in high school our Senior Champs were at the University pool in Fairbanks in March. The building heaters were not working. The room was about 40 degrees. The water was in the 70's. We were all wearing parkas, rubber boots and stocking caps behind the blocks until the last second when we stripped down to our paper suits before our races.
Swam a couple of big best times there. Great memories.
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