On New Years Day, for the third year in a row, I got up at an ungodly hour and drove into the city to meet up with my fellow crazy people and jump into the freezing cold Monongahela River. And as always, I am glad I did. It maye seem crazy to some (hell - it seems crazy to me - if you want to know the reason why I do it, that story is here), but it's an awesome way to start off the new year - by doing something wild and ballsy and adventurous and invigorating and yes - crazy. I intend to keep on doing it every year. In fact, 8 year old Emily told me she needs to do it with me next year. We'll see how she feels at disgustingly early o'clock on January 1st, 2013.
When we got to the river, the sun was coming out and it seemed like a great day for a swim:
We gathered around and slowly de-layered ourselves in preparation (well some of us did. Others of us who are totally badass just took it all off way ahead of time and told the cold to SUCK IT):
Some of us prayed:
OK, that was actually a diving pose, but it looks like praying and honestly, the old fogeys among us were praying silently for the water rescue boats to show up because at dive time, this is what we saw (NO BOATS! WTF?):
Then the dark clouds started to form in the background:
It started raining and we decided that there was no reason to wait around in the rain, getting cold and wet. If we were going to get cold and wet, it was going to be on OUR TERMS, DAMMIT! So we jumped:
We depended on others to rescue us from the freezing water, because there is no getting out without help (photo by @burghbaby):
And when it was over, we were happy, albeit cold (photo by @burghbaby):
Thanks to @burghbaby for her photos, and to Crappy Dad (who is decidedly un-crappy) for taking photos with my camera.
7 comments:
You are a badass.
And crazy... just a little bit crazy.
Pardon me while I go burrow under a blanket for the rest of the afternoon....
That's AWESOME! I swim in the atlantic ocean each year on Super Bowl Sunday to raise funds the local Special Olympics. Its a great day! So invigorating!
The flowery cap totally makes it badass.
Total badass.
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Woohoo! Go Gina! I did the plunge in Maryland and enjoyed every second of it! Love the flower cap, by the way...I jumped in dressed up as a pirate, you know, because pirates are impervious to the cold...or so I kept telling myself.
-Amber
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