The polar bear experience

First off let me welcome everyone to the year 2009. I hope it is as great as you want, and can make it

Since returning to Canada from my time in Texas, I have been known to complain or even periodically bitch about the extreme cold here in Canada. This comes as a shock to people who remember me as a ski instructor who would spend days outdoors in the -30 weather teaching.
Well since my time in the south, man do I ever miss the south sometimes, my blood had thinned and I am unable to adjust back to the colder climate. So what is one to do? How does one overcome this? I decided to take an extremist approach to the matter and take a plunge. What type of plunge you might ask … the polar bear plunge.





While most of you were sleeping off new year’s hangovers, or relaxing under your down filled covers, I got up early, and silently headed out for a dip in lake Ontario with hundreds of other “crazy” individuals. I did not tell anyone I was doing it, not family, not friends. This was intentional as I did not want to hear any negativity that might convince me otherwise from doing this.

The polar bears club get up each new year’s morning, head down to the icy waters of lake Ontario, and that it right, take off their clothing run into the water, and dance around frantically trying to pretend that it is not cold. They get pledges to raise money for a charity of choice; this year was a clean water fund for Rwanda.

http://www.polarbeardip.ca/

The experience … well let’s just say I will never do it again. I neither found it exhilarating nor refreshing as people had described. Simply cold, bitterly bone chilling cold. Too look on the bright side however; I did achieve two greater goals by doing this. One, helped out a good cause and got a new year’s resolution out of the way early this year. Two, now the mornings do not seem quite as cold and I am better prepared to fight the cold Canadian winter months.

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