Ocean Swimming in Winter?!? Foul Weather Friends with Jeannette Strickland
Every month PelotonLabs co-founder Liz Trice interviews a local community member. This month, Liz caught up with Jeannette Strickland, longtime Portland Aquatics lifeguard and swim coach, and her friends who swim in the ocean multiple times a week… year-round!
You swim in the ocean 3-4 times each week. What got you started?
There’s about eight of us ranging from our thirties to seventies and most of us have swum together for years, some decades! We’ve always swum in the ocean, and wanted to keep seeing each other during the pandemic, so we started swimming regularly in the summer. In October 2021 we felt sad that it was getting colder, so decided to keep pushing further and further into the winter. We’ve now swum over sixty times since October! We’ve measured water temperatures as low as twenty-three degrees – but that day we only stayed in eight minutes.
Jeannette, you’ve been involved in swimming your whole life, right?
My twin sister, Jean, and I grew up swimming in the South Portland pool. My father was one of the parents who started that pool in 1980. Good coaches there encouraged us to join the swim team, teach swimming, and take lifeguard training. I was nineteen when I got my first coaching job and never looked back. Working for the City of Portland for thirty-five years, I started the Portland Masters Swim Group twenty-five years ago.
[Others gathered to chime in that Jeannette inspires people…] Tons of people swim in the ocean because of Jeannette… Seventy-six emails go out to say where and when we will swim the next time according to the tide… And the City of Portland, Portland Fire Department, and Maine Medical Center just honored Jeannette for saving a life at a city pool!
What’s the routine?
We all wear neoprene socks, neoprene gloves, neoprene cap and bathing caps, then a normal swimsuit, and usually crocs on our feet and some sort of coverup between the car and the beach. Some use wax earplugs, and some of us don’t put their heads under water. All of us have tow floats tied to us.
Sometimes there are dozens of people walking on the beach, a few dogs running around, sometimes other groups or singles doing cold plunges.
The water is thirty-two degrees today, so our plan is to stay in the water for fifteen minutes. For the first half we’ll walk, waist deep, towing swimming floats. Then we swam back in deeper water, chatting and laughing, staying close together, and checking in on each other the whole time.
Then we get out, run to our cars, giggling and hooting, pour hot water on ourselves, take off the suits, wrap in towels, get in the car with the heat blasting, drink tea from thermoses, and talk with our friends via conference call. It takes about thirty to forty-five minutes to fully warm up. We get warmer faster now than we used to, and we’ve adjusted the amount of time in the water, so no one is shivering excessively. Nobody leaves until we’re all warmed up and happy.
Some of us used to not like the cold, and feel shocked, but not anymore. But it’s safe because we know what we need to do.
It just takes a while to adjust… It’s the emotional part that’s hard!
To the group who are ocean swimming today, what do you get out of swimming in the cold water?
“I love the endorphin high! We feel really good afterwards.”
“I love the camaraderie of sharing something with friends.”
“I’m energized and sleep like a baby after.”
“Exposure to nature! We even have pictures of holding ice chunks in the
water!”
“We have fun.”
“Mark suggested we contribute $1 each time we swim, to give to charity.
We are up to $100!”
Swimmers we spoke to for this article: Jeannette Strickland, Jean Strickland, Kathy Leavis, Carolyn Foley, Mark Reynolds, Scott Tebbetts, Annika Moltz, Pete O’Donnell.
How to get involved in Swimming!
Portland Aquatics Swim and Master Class workouts (everyone is welcome!)
https://www.portlandmaine.gov/673/Aquatics
Full moon swims at Willard Beach
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/2022-full-moon-swim-series-113529
Peaks to Portland Swim Race
https://www.ymcaofsouthernmaine.org/swim
Three-mile swim from Lincolnville to Islesboro
https://www.lifeflightmaine.org/LifeFlight-Community/Events/Islesboro-Crossing-for-LifeFlight-2015.aspx
Wim Hoff method – cold exposure for health benefits
https://www.wimhofmethod.com/cold-therapy
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PelotonPosts is created by PelotonLabs. WEN provides column space without charge. PelotonLabs has been a paid advertiser. WEN publisher and editor Tony Zeli is a coworking member at PelotonLabs.
