The longest 1h 34s of my life.

One should never make important life decisions under influence of excitement. It never ends well. And it didn't end well this time for me either.

At the time when I've heard about a 2000m swim in a Copenhagen canal, I was clearly in an adventurous mood. And so I must have been when we were registering for the swim. My mum, quite rightly, was absolutely petrified by the idea of spending an hour in a cold water. Dad thought it was ridiculous to intentionally get so tired. I didn't listen.

And so we've ended up by the Christiansborg in Copenhagen. It was a pleasantly warm morning, not a cloud in sight on the sky. After intial wetsuit issues, I was all ready to go. In all fairness, just before the start I was quite excited. I've even took some time in the past few months to try to improve my swimming and managed to get up to 1700m in my practice sessions. So I felt reasonably confident about this swim and hoped for a time around 50 minutes. Oh, how overly optimistic I was!

Before the race, with a smile on my face.

First jump into the water was not too bad. My feet and hands sensed a little cold, but the wetsuit (and probably the emotions) kept me warm. It was a complete madness when the start signal finally came. 65 people close to each other in the water. I could barely move any of my limbs without constantly kicking or hitting someone next to me. There was a current and some waves on the water as well which made everything even more difficult. If this wasn't enough, it turned out that my body was wholly incompatible with swimming in a wetsuit. It added too much buoyancy which restricted my moves. Even though I tried really hard to kick, it felt that I was barely moving forward. Each metre of the swim was a struggle. My neck and lower back hurt. Half way through I've figured that backstroke was easiest to do, although in any other circumstances it would have caused me much trouble. All the way through I was deliberating whether I should ask one of the lifeguards to get me out of the water. But I wanted to get a medal. Also, it would be really embarrassing not to finish the race. So despite my desperation, and desperate I was,I pushed through and eventually made it to the finish line.

After the race, with a medal and a somewhat forced smile.

You can imagine how relieved I was when I was finally out of the water. I didn't manage to finish within my desired time (I've actually made it in 1:00:34), but given how much trouble I had in the water and how disheartened I felt all the way through, I'm proud of myself. I've done something I've never done before. But it was, without doubt, the longest 1h 34s of my life. I don't think I will be longing for more such experiences any time soon.

If're worried about me, you will be glad to hear that I've recovered now, thanks to a few nights of good sleep and a hot stone massage. But this dubiously pleasurable adventure successfully got such crazy ideas out of my head.