It was another gray morning down at the Albany Bulb today, but I didn’t mind. A big crowd showed up for the morning swim.

They all seemed to dive right in and shoot off. Sheila, Angie, and I did our best to catch up. It’s harder for me these days because I can’t plunge right into the water anymore; I need to ease into the cold and even once my body is in, it takes a while for me to be ready to subject my face to the cold. So it’s at least a few minutes before I’m swimming front crawl and by then, most of the group is well on their way.

But, by then I’m tingling all over with the magical, restorative, vibrancy of the cold water and so I don’t care. Today we swam a nice, hard twenty minutes out, took some pictures, and then flew back in.