Ice Swim Success!

A special blog is in order today, as one of our own MIT Master's teammates, Elaine Kornbau-Howley (known as E2), completed the 2012 Ice Swim, a one-mile swim in 40 degrees with her fellow crazy-town friend Jerome Leslie. To put this into perspective, only 26 people in the history of open water swimming have accomplished this feat, which E2 did in 29 minutes and change. To provide further perspective, when the EMT arrived at the L Street bathhouse prior to the swim, his understanding was that this was another ice plunge, where swimmers get in and get out quickly. No biggie, thought Cal, our new EMT friend. So when he realized that these two nut cases (said lovingly) were going to actually SWIM back and forth for a mile, he immediately alerted his command center, secured backup, and made an actual plan for what to do when one of the swimmers needed to be pulled (and I am not joking here). You see, in Cal's experience, when someone unfortunately plunges into 40 degree water accidentally, they are treated for hypothermia after 5 minutes. So he truly thought he was facing an emergency situation.

While I will let E2 recall her experience, as a spectator/helper, it was amazing to watch. She and Jerome walked calmly into the water and started swimming. At first, it seemed tough to have her face submerged, so she did backstroke. But once she got her groove going, she got her GROOVE going and simply smoked the mile, looking stronger with each stroke. Meanwhile, those of us watching were fully clothed and ridiculously cold as the rain pounded down on us. Yes, the definition of wimpy. After emerging, she went through the typical stages of someone with hypothermia, including scary shaking and alternately turning blue and red. The whole time Cal is moving back and forth between E2 and Jerome marveling at what was happening. But in the end, it was a celebration as these two brave/crazy swimmers will get the official red jacket that comes with this accomplishment. And Cal (pictured above with E2 and her friend Lisa)  has a great story to tell all his EMT friends.  Bravo!