#1 Train the endurance to cold waters

This is the second installment of a 9-part series I am putting together.
If you miss some context in this post, go back to the first one, published on June 5th.

Swimming in cold waters is one of the most exciting things I can imagine. For my body but also for my brain. Exciting in Dutch is spannend, which can also have a sort of scary connotation. And in this sense I believe that it fits very well what I feel when swimming out there.

Photo by Gary Fultz on Unsplash

WHAT COLD MEANS TO ME
In reference to the idea of cold(ness), a lot is relative. I know Ireland-based swimmers who are happy every time the water temp is above 13 Celsius. And yet swim in open waters without wetsuits regularly.
I know swimmers who wear wetsuits in pools with water temp around 30 Celsius (and do not faint!).

The water coming from our faucets is usually around 10 Celsius. To me anything below that is pretty damn cold and not so pleasant at first. Anything above that and until then 15ish mark is cold. And yet fun and exciting.
(Ice water is between 0 and 5 Celsius, in case you are wondering. I am not going to talk about that.)

Swimming outside from October ‘22 to April – although irregularly – helped me a great deal to build the stamina I need to swim much longer distances in less demanding conditions.

Sometimes a swim did non last more than 10 minutes. Which sounds like a very ineffective training day, right? Even more so, one might argue, since the preparation and the post training activities do also take extra time. 

Yet, making our body acquainted with that and keeping on swimming in less comfortable conditions pushed our  availability to swim longer distances by quite a lot. I noticed it these past few weeks. Imagine it as a medium term investment for your ability to become a real open water swimmer. 

In cold waters muscles tend to shrink in volume faster and thus provide less push/energy to your strokes. At the same time, the lungs are not necessarily inspiring as much air as usual, as the cold air makes us breath less deeply. Additionally, it is very likely that the outside weather conditions are not so friendly either, with windy and grimm conditions. 

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

WHERE TO START FROM
Generally speaking, I believe in the progressive ability of humans to adapt and improve, otherwise I would not work in the trade of L&D.
When it comes to swimming in cold waters, my advice is to keep in mind the process and not only how you perform on one specific occasion.

Start when the water temperature is not yet so extreme – i.e. at the end of the summer/beginning of fall, and keep track of the time you spend in water. As long as the temperatures remain constant, you will notice that you can swim longer. If the temperatures drop, try to stay as long as the previous time. In my case these simple principles provided both and a bit of a challenge I could relate too.
It is simply what the German call a pi mal daumen rule, i.e. a rough estimate of how to visualize and record your progress.
Another way to look at it for me is to stay in the water for as many  minutes as the units in Celsius, i.e. 1 minute for 1 Celsius, 2 minutes for 2 Celsius and so on.

THE PRACTICALITIES OF ENTERING THE WATER
Here follow some basic suggestions of what to do and not to.

• Bring extra clothes to the location of your swim (food and warm beverage for the post swim)

• Stay warm until you intend to start

• Perform some warm-up exercises and stretch shoulders and trunk ( at the very least)
  Do not dive into the water unless you are sure that it is not that cold

• Wear a swim cap!

• Put your feet and hands in the water first, absorb the shock that they transmit to your body; then progress with the rest of your limbs and do not stop until you are completely under water. 

• Before the first stroke put your head under water, start swimming and try not to breathe straight away or too deeply, keep that urge for a second and listen to the beautiful feeling of the water electrifying your skin.

THE MOST IMPORTANT WAY TO LISTEN TO YOUR BODY
What helped me the most in these years of progressively longer swims in cold waters is the ability to distinguish almost instantly the difference between your skin feeling the cold and your body feeling cold. The first is the exciting part of the activity, one that becomes more and more a dependence – if not addiction , the second is a way to understand that it would be time to stop or to produce more energy.

Once you come out of the water it is vital to dry yourself up swiftly and to stay warm. The hands will possibly start shivering after a minute or two, and that is actually a very good sign, as our body has directed most of the blood towards the main organs and left the limbs a bit less irrorated until then. 

It is also advisable to bring somebody with you, who can assess your conditions, i.e. can see whether you risk freezing. In my case, I suggest they ask me random names of Prime Ministers in European Countries if they see me absent or acting aloof (did not happen yet)

FEW CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT L&D
One of the most important skills you need to have as a professional working on learning and training programs is perseverance/persistence and tenacity. I believe to possess plenty of it and to have actually learnt to store some extra reserves throughout my career.

The conviction that, for instance, the adjustments we make to the content will be useful to the learners; that the feedback on the first version of the content will at some point be sent by the stakeholders. More in general, the belief that my work can make a difference to the learned in the organization, even if unexpected manners.

Photo by Kyryl Levenets on Unsplash

At moments, working as an Instructional Designer or a L&D Consultant will feel like being left in the cold, i.e. ignored when raising the point of impact of a course, or when questioning the choice of course packaging and offering; when the shortcomings observed are more organizational, i.e. related to human resources or company culture, learning interventions are risky and tend to become an ad hoc, reactive exercise. 

The truth is that more often than not misunderstandings arise (and different visions on a learning program are established) before you even know it. Learning offers can be used or advertised as means to solve problems that go beyond the reach of any learning activity. Or can be trade offs used to get something else in a tit for tat discussion within a large enterprise.
Endurance is to me the ability of an L&D professional to keep the focus on the delivery of quality, straight forward content, within a reasonable time frame and without the need to sell fried lies either to management or the participants.

It is a big challenge.

Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

By drawing further from the-feeling-of-the-cold and being-cold analogy, I’d say that as long as the cold at work feels like an autumn breeze, a momentary spell of cold communication, feedback or similar, there is nothing to worry about. It is part of the deal of every transactional job. 

On the other side, you should question your ability to deliver relevant products or services, every time you get cold feet and are thus left parked or detached from communication, meetings and else for a prolonged spell of time or when the input you receive do not match the expected output at all.

Training yourself to recognize the signals connected to each condition helps you to keep sane and increases your ability to help your team, department, client  or else. At the same you will become spot on and ask the questions lingering in the air that nobody thought about asking. 

If you want to know more about the work I do, check my LinkedIn profile or my website.