Any normal person would hyperventilate and drown from shock within a few minutes of jumping into near freezing water but Lewis Gordon Pugh swam -- wearing only a cap, racing trunks and goggles -- for 23 minutes and 50 seconds to break his own 1 km record.
"I'm ecstatic," he told Reuters by telephone. "It was the hardest cold water swim I have ever done because the water is so fresh."
The human body is less buoyant in fresh water than in salty seawater.
Last year 36-year-old Pugh swam for 1 km in the Barents Sea off the northerly island of Spitzbergen and in 2003 he swam 5 km around North Cape, Europe's most northern point.
He has swum around the Cape of Good hope in South Africa and in the Indian Ocean.
But he said Friday's swim, in a fjord still three-quarters covered by ice and beneath Europe's largest glacier Jostedalsbreen, pushed his body to its limit.
"After many years of training I can control the initial shock (when entering the water) but it took my body to the edge swimming for that long," he said.
After the initial shock the body feels a searing, burning sensation, Pugh said. After 15 minutes of swimming, Pugh said he lost feeling in his hands and feet.
2 comments:
after the first 3 seconds he lost the feeling in his brain too, or he would have hauled his ass out of the water...plumb silly
He got the idea from David Blaine , both have frozen heads now
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