Dec 31st 2010 Birthday Swim

December 31st ... 5:30 AM ... swimming in 29 degree weather ... what were we thinking :-) ? Well, it turns out Friday's are usually the biggest turnout of the week for the Cactus Pool Sun Devil Masters swim team as we do lap swimming and water polo. This morning was no different ... we had 10 people playing water polo in the diving well and about 15 people doing lap swimming on the 50 meter course ... but it HAD to be the coldest day of the year. It was good fun though and I would take 29 degree weather without wind over a 40 degree day with 20 mph winds (like we had earlier this week) any time! Still ... it was way cold getting from the comfortable 82 degree water into the locker room for a warm shower and change of clothes. Afterwards we did our normal Friday morning bagel meeting at the local Einstein's.

The accompanying photos show some folks in the water for lap swimming and our big table at Einstein's where we often solve all the world's problems over bagels. Those problems we don't solve we save till the following week :-)

The photo of the pool does not show the full effect of the fog hanging over the pool on cold dry mornings. Especially in the diving well where we were playing polo ... with all the churning of the water there is quite a bit more fog and you cannot see more than 15 yards when you are at water level ... this made passing the ball in water polo a little more difficult than normal. There were more than a couple passes that either went by or hit the receiver in the head before they saw the ball.

It made it extra nice that it was my birthday and I could celebrate it with good friends.