When I first decided to undertake this Dart 10k swimming thingy I jumped blindly into Clevedon Marine lake in a temperature of 11 degrees and although I had a wetsuit on I thought this was absolutely freezing!
The temperature then began to drop rapidly and two weeks ago it hit minus one degrees.
Every time it it dropped I moaned and groaned about it, then suddenly without even realising it I started adapting. This realisation came to me in a quite absurd way: Ten days or so ago I was preparing to get in the lake and when a member of the public asked me how cold the water was so I pulled the thermometer out of the lake, it read four degrees.
Now, rather than wince at the thought of this my mind gave a little leap of joy the water was so, so, so much warmer than the previous week! " Four degrees, pretty warm" I announced gleefully to the man who was now pulling a face with a pained expression and backing slowly away. That however wasn't really the absurd bit. Just as I was getting in another swimmer turned up, so I waited for them to change and then we did a few laps together. At one point we stopped in the middle of the lake to catch a breath and whilst treading water we both agreed how it was "really rather pleasant now it was warm again". We then shared a priceless moment: we both simply stared at one another, each of us suddenly realising the complete absurdity of what we had said. Thats adaption for you I guess.
Apparently the dart could be around 13 degrees in September, so after all my chasing to get a warmer wetsuit it look like I might be after a thinner one by then?