On Saturday, December 6th, I participated in the Buffalo Polar Plunge fundraiser for our local Special Olympics organization. I plunged into Lake Ontario in February 2023 with the 716Ruck group, but I missed it the last two years because of travel and other conflicts. That was actually not too awful; the water was only 35, but the air was almost 40, and there was no wind.
Open-water, cold-water swimming, and plunging into lakes or just tubs have become more popular. Here are some articles. I have swum in San Francisco Bay and a chilly pond in London. I did brief cold plunges in Iceland, but then jumped right into a hot tub. PLEASE
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/cold-plunge-after-workouts
When I saw a month ago that I would be home for the Polar Plunge event, I quickly signed up. I donated $50 myself, and donations from my nephew B and my friend J got me over the $125 minimum needed to participate. I didn’t make a considerable fundraising effort because I need to save that effort for my upcoming medical mission to the Dominican Republic in March 2026. You can still donate to The Special Olympics at the link below. They had several thousand Plungers over three days and raised $700,000!
https://events.nyso.org/site/TR/Plunge/POLARPLUNGE?pg=personal&px=1105061&fr_id=3314
I sent out a few requests on Facebook for people to join my “Team,” but it was only a few weeks out, and I got no takers. A few months ago, I formed my own Facebook group for people interested in swimming in Lakes Erie and Ontario after September, when all the official Triathlon club swims end. Feel free to join it even if you don’t swim or live elsewhere.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1156604206529124
The Facebook page photo is of Lake Ontario at Porter Town Park on a windy day. A few people chose not to swim at all that day or stayed close to the beach. Rough water swimming doesn’t bother me as long as the water isn’t too cold. I’ve swum in water as cold as 47 degrees (while it was snowing). During Covid, when the pools were closed all winter, I was eager to start swimming in the spring.
The weather forecast for Saturday called for a balmy 35 degrees, with some wind off the lake and a little snow. Registration was from 11-1 and the plunge at 2 pm. I arrived at 12:20 and was surprised by the massive number of cars filling several parking lots. I was well bundled up except for my feet in just water shoes, and it didn’t seem too frigid on the 10-minute walk to the registration area.
A lot of people were “tailgating” as if it were a Buffalo Bills game. There were grills, fires, and tents, and a LOT of alcohol being consumed to steel people for the cold.
Registration was quick and efficient. They were out of all sweatshirt sizes except for small and XXL. There was an option to scan a QR code and have a medium mailed to me, but I just took a small one, which actually fit me fine. They were very nice sweatshirts! I took off the one I was wearing and put it on for a photo. The Beach bathrooms were open as changing rooms, but the plumbing was off for the winter, so they had porta-potties lined up nearby.
There was a giant warming tent, and I got some coffee and looked around. There were many people in great costumes. The bigger teams had assigned tables and were having picnic lunches and LOTS of alcohol. At one end of the tent, a local radio DJ fitness woman kept everyone fired up. The most popular costumes were Santas and Polar Bears.
After finishing my coffee and deciding not to buy any Special Olympics merchandise, I walked the 10 minutes back to my car to put away my sweatshirt and get my bag of towels and my boots. By then, it was 1:15 pm, so I decided to walk down to the beach to take some photos and enjoy a walk on the sand. However, as soon as I walked past the dunes that had shielded the parking lots from the beach, the wind was HOWLING. I fought the wind to climb to the top of a dune to get a photo of the waves crashing into the beach.
I forced a smile for the selfie while thinking, HOLY Crap! The windchill must be like ZERO degrees….
I then understood why there was NO ONE on the beach only 30 minutes before plunge time! I quickly returned to the warming tent and found a seat to wait until the last minute like all the other smart people.
It was now very crowded in the tent, which was great because of all the extra body heat.
They announced awards for the top fundraising teams and individuals. Special Olympics is such a great charity. A woman in the Buffalo Triathlon Club has a lovely son with Down Syndrome. I had to keep a close eye on Fifa one day to make sure she didn’t steal his breakfast sandwich at the lake. Next year, I need to see if she wants to get more BTC people involved. As people started to leave the tent, I saw that all the Polar Bears were wearing official Special Olympics shirts.
Such a great sentiment! I wasn’t trying to win anything, but I had set a goal of staying in the water for at least 88 seconds as December 6th would have been my late father’s 88th Bday. It was always easy to remember as the day before Pearl Harbor Day. He would have just turned 5 for that epic day.
Having not done the Plunge before, I didn’t realize until I heard people talking that, at 2 PM exactly, the “parade” from the tent to the Lake would begin, led by Special Olympics ambassadors carrying the torch and banners. As I didn’t have anyone with me to be my “towel holder,” I stripped down, set my towels and clothes by the exit, and asked someone to take my “BRAVE/Stupid” photo.
The wind was howling, and I don’t think I’ve seen the Lackawanna windmills spinning that fast in a long time.
I found a spot where the dunes provided a little shelter from the wind and waited to join the parade.
After getting a quick video, I joined the march. I had put on my after-swim robe over my bathing suit, so I had to drop it along with my towels on the way to the water.
As we neared the water, the parade stopped; the people at the front had reached the starting line and were held up there for a few minutes. It was cold for a few minutes while we stood there. Still, the energy was tremendous; people were jumping, yelling, and dancing to stay warm. A few minutes later, we saw the earliest people running out, so we marched into the water.
I didn’t have my phone for photos at the time, but there was a nice video on Facebook, and I even made a cameo just as the videographer cut to people exiting the water.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=polar%20plunge%20for%20special%20olympics
With the prolonged heavy surf, the water was thick with mud and sand that immediately stuck to the skin. I was planning to walk slowly out to my waist and then submerge to my neck (I wore a hat, so no swimming). I didn’t get a good photo, but try to imagine a line of a dozen cold-water rescue folks in brightly colored dry suits, standing waist-deep about 50 feet from shore. You were clearly not meant to go past them, and as soon as the first waves splashed my body, the wind chill was awful. I didn’t even get past waist-deep before my legs and feet were in excruciating pain. At least I did better than the people who ran into knee-deep water and then right back to shore.
I shivered and panted as I toweled off, put on my robe, and took off my water shoes. I pulled on my sweatpants while holding onto a railing, but even though I had pre-treated my boots with baby powder, it was tough to put them on, as my frozen toes spasmed and pointed in all directions. Eventually, I maneuvered my feet snugly into them, but they never warmed up. I had to take off my robe to put my sweatshirt on, and then when I walked to the shoreline to get a photo, everyone had already left the water, even the lifeguards.
Everyone walked, or stumbled, back to their cars and the warming tent. I slowly walked back to my car, shocked by how awful I looked in the mirror, so I took a selfie.
And if the parking lot full of tents and grills reminded me of a Bill’s game beforehand, it was even more so afterwards, when it took me a full 30 minutes to get out of the crowded parking lot. Next year, I will know to park as close to the exit as possible. Even with my heated steering wheel, seat, and heat on high, I was still frozen when I got home. I took a hot shower and an epson salt bath!
Even better would have been if my neighbor had been home; she keeps her hot tub at 104 all winter! It is nice on snowy evenings.
The next morning, I went to a 90-minute Hot Yoga class (108 degrees, 50% humidity), quite the extreme difference!
And in the afternoon, I watched the Bills’ snowy, windy, cold game on Sunday. With enough alcohol, people can tolerate a lot of COLD.
PLEASE Subscribe, Like, Share, Comment!!!! And…. local people next year join my “Team”, you don’t even have to get wet, you can help fundraise, tailgate, and towel hold!