If you're clever (read "wierd") enough to have deciphered that title, then you've already figured out that today I went for a swim in the Avon. I'm officially a member of the Unviersity of Bristol Polar Bear Club.
I was, as is my habit lately, sculling (this due largely to the fact that the rest of the women's "senior" squad can't be bothered to turn up for training anymore). It was a gorgeous, still, FUCKING COLD morning. The thermometer was reading 6 below, and the river was steaming, owing to the water being about 7 degrees warmer than the air. There was a beautiful rainbow sunrise, the sky was splashed with pink and apricot, and when the sun crested the horizon the steam on the water became a flowing pool of golden mist. I even saw a deer on the bank, which my Irish team mate said was good luck. (Yeah, THERE'S an omen.)
After my first 6K my toes were dead. I couldn't feel them at all. (This is, sadly, normal for me, owing to shit circulation in my feet.) I did another 6K, came in, had a wee, ate banana (what on earth makes me think you give a shit about what i ate on my break?!? fucking hell...), and jumped up and down a lot to bring life back to my poor widdle piggies, with little result. I managed to get some pins and needles going, decided that was going to have to be sufficient, and went out again.
Up the straight, spin it, bust it back. I was at the bottom of the straight (a position I'm told to which many gay men aspire) coming around the corner. Owing to my shit steering, I was taking the bend wide (there's a tree on the inside of that bend with which I am intimately acquainted. His name is Reginald. I'll introduce you sometime). Coming up was the senior men's coxless 4. They were at speed, and taking the bend on the inside so as to make the turn.
Allow me at this point to explain to you just how this particular stretch of the Avon works. It's very narrow. If you're not in the bushes on the bank, you're in the middle of the river. By an extraordinary piece of change navigation, I was not in the bushes. By an extraordinary piece of chance navigation, the men's 4- was not in the bushes. Can you see where this is going yet?
We both came around the bend, looked behind us, and yelled simultaneously "FOUR/SCULL!!!" (From the bank it must have sounded like "Score!" Hardly. They dug in hard to stop the boat. I dug in hard with my starboard blade so as to slow down and veer at the same time. FATAL ERROR.
Let me expalin to you the concept of "cold." If you have never been completely submerged in water that is barely above freezing, you have probably never truly experienced "cold." It's rather amazing. Have you ever watched "Titanic?" Probably. You know the scene where Jack is in the water, rapidly feezing to death? This is but one more prime example of DeCaprio's inablility to act. Artsy, romantic, melodramatic statements such as "Save yourself, Rose!" would, in actuality, have sounded much more like "Uh...ugh...exhug...ahu..." This is because when one is suddenly submerged in freezing (or in the case of the Titanic, sub-freezing water, the ocean being saline and therefore having a significantly lower freezing temperature), all your muscles sieze up at once, including those in your chest. like your diaphragm. This makes it next to impossible to breath, let alone cry for help or even speak.
I passed my flip test this summer, so I made one valiant effort at regaining the scull. I failed. I was only about 12 feet from shore. Herbie, the men's captian, was in the four. He said to me (quite sensibly), "Fuck the boat, swim to the bank and get out of the water." I abandoned my craft (which is shit anyway), and slogged it though the muck to the bank, hyperventilating and hypothermic. The four were already spinning to book it back to the boathouse and fetch a launch. It was reassuring to hear Pete's call of "All four at backstops, FULL PRESSURE. ROW!" And my gallant knights beat it back to lauch a rescue.
(Irritating aside: As I was sitting on the bank, dripping, shivering, hyperventilating, and shaking, a couple out for a morning constitutional with their perky spaniel ambled along. "Good morning!" they greeted me cheerfully. WTF? Are you kidding? "Might I possibly borrow your dog for a moment as a heat source?" inquired I. "I would really like to hold her for a few minutes until my rescue comes along." They looked at me wierdly and walked on. Now, I appreciate that people are protective of their pets, but I have a dog too. She's a little hairy hot water bottle with legs and a (stupidly long) tongue. If I saw someone freezing to death and I had Daisy with me, the first thing i would have done would be dump the dog in the person's lap. I really didn't think this was a lot to ask. They ambled on and left me for dead. Fuckers. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their pubic hair.)
After several hours Herbie came charing back with the brand-new, plastic, crayon yellow launch. (Ok, it was more like 8 minutes, but that was a long 8 minutes my friend.) I slogged back out into the river, knee-deep in black muck, and flopped aboard like a half-dead fish. Herbie pulled on the cord to re-start the engine. Nothing.
Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?!?! In my hypothermia-induced delirium (it's my understanding that people suffering from dehydration and/or hypothermia often halucinate and babble things from their past) all I could think to say was "Some rescue. You came in here; didn't you have a plan for getting out?" (Bonus prize for the first person to correctly identify the reference.) Then I started giggling. It really wasn't funny. By that time I couldn't feel my legs from the knees down.
Herbie finally got the damn thing running, and i straddled the seat behind him, holding his waist. My knight in shining spandex. Aww.
Got in, hobbled to changing room, stripped (forgot to close the door, didn't care), and threw on all my dry kit. Being the girl scout that I am, I never go down to the boathouse without a complete change of dry kit, including knickers and bra. Pete made me tea and turned on his car and let me sit in the warm car until I felt better. (Our boat house has no heat.) I would have sold my body for a hot shower at that point. (We have no hot running water, either, and the boathouse is miles from civilization.)
After a few minutes I actually felt fine, save my feet. I was unable to revive them. I rubbed them, held a warm mug against them, rubbed them more, tried walking on them (which was extremely painful), tried jumping up and down, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet, rubbed them some more, held them in front of the heat vents in Pete's car... nada. I had to wait almost 2 hours before the rest of the crews were off and I could get a lift back into Bristol, during which time I was totally unable to bring any sensation, even pins and needles, to my toes. I told my coach. He said I was fine.
Finally they brought me back and I hobbled with great difficulty to my flat. I got to my room, took off my clothes, turned on the shower, took off my socks...
My feet were pink, which was a good sign. My toes were not. They weren't quite white, more of a yellow-ish greenish color. My toenails were blue, and the edges of my toenails were kind of blackish. I freaked. My toes looked as though they ought to have a tag on them. They looked like the toes of a corpse on CSI or Law & Order. I got in the shower, praying the hot water would last more than 90 seconds. (For most people when the hot water cuts out it's an inconvenience. For a rower hot water isn't a luxury, it's a medical necessity even on the best of days, which this wasn't.)
It took almost 10 minutes to achieve pins and needles! First my toes went dark purple, and I knew at least that blood was coming into them, albiet with little oxygen. Ten minutes after that they started to pink up. Thank god, because by that time the hot water WAS starting to run out.
Now i'm dry, I've had a hot meal (homemade chicken, carrot, and mushroom stew), drank 3 cups of tea, turned up the heat in my room, put on my warmest wool jumper, and am typing away whilst cheerfully enjoying the sensation of being able to wiggle my toes. Yay. I will never take my toes for granted again, never never never.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I had my sneakers tucked behind the footplate of the scull. When it dumped me out, one of them went into the murky, steaming water, forever lost. It will lay there, resting in the muck of the Avon for all posterity as a silent testament to my clumsiness and fucking shit steering. Right next to the pogie that also went in (the other managed to stay on the oar). So i spent the remainder of the time at the boathouse hopping about on one foot. I'm now known as "Hop-a-long." (Cheers, Gordon.) Oh, joy.
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