Lewis Pugh takes a swim in a lake at Mount Everest
A news item that appeared in the media recently said that a man went swimming in a lake at the foot of Mount Everest. Needless to say the lake was freezing cold and this intrepid swimmer was wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, swimming cap and goggles. Why would he do something like that, why would he risk drowning and hypothermia and why do others around the world do it too? Is it the sense of adventure they get from doing it or is it a sense of accomplishment or could it just be that they get some weird kick out of plunging into almost freezing water and swimming around in it.
To explore this issue further requires an understanding of what would really posses someone to swim in icy waters and how do they survive. The news article stated the following, “A British endurance swimmer summoned the peak of his powers to become the first person to swim under the summit of Mount Everest, Sky News reported Sunday. Lewis Gordon Pugh battled freezing waters to cross the one kilometre (0.62 miles) glacial lake next to the Khumbu Glacier. He came close to drowning during test swims for the event amid bouts of altitude sickness on the Pumori Lake, which sits 17,000 feet above sea level. But an adapted approach saw him through to complete the swim in a time of 22 minutes and 51seconds,” (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/23/british-man-braves-icy-waters-swim-mt-everest/).
A little further on the article states that the reason Lewis Pugh took part in this mind bogglingly cold swim was to raise awareness on environmental issues like the glaciers melting. Now if this is good enough reason as to why anyone would get into freezing water, because it helps raise awareness for environmental destruction, then by all means it’s a worthy cause. This man has done some crazy freezing water stunts and according to the article has been dubbed, “The Human Polar Bear.” How cool of a nickname is that, wouldn’t it be great to be known as something like the human polar bear or the human tiger, or the human encyclopaedia. Pertinent to mention here is that Lewis Pugh’s feat is not the only time someone has taken a plunge into icy waters to see what would happen.
A lot of the time people who are professional swimmers have to bear the cold weather because of a swimming contest they are part of but others actively go on icy swims for various reasons. Some like Lewis Pug do it to raise awareness for a very worthy cause, others just do it for the fun of it, some do it to train their bodies to react to the temperature drop and others do it to make stupid videos of themselves to put up on video sharing sites. But a question pops up here that how exactly do swimmers survive the cold water and how are they able to swim in almost freezing temperatures?
It could be that a swimmer has to be very physically fit in order to perform at the top of their fields and so their bodies are already hardened to a lot of strain over the years. Swimmers are some of the fittest people on the planet and their bodies can handle any sort of abuse thrown their way. So maybe the reason they can do things like swim in an almost frozen lake at the foot of Mount Everest 17,000 feet above sea level is because their bodies are used to being driven at the peak of their capabilities. No ordinary, average, sitting on the couch watching soaps and eating crisps could have done what Lewis Pugh did; their bodies would have shut down and they would have drowned.
It seems that years of training and physical conditioning have given athletic swimmers the ability to hone their bodies to cope with the pressure of an icy swim. Only an athletic swimmer can control their breathing at such a high altitude and adapt their bodies to withstand the cold in such low temperatures. Endurance swimmers like Pugh are even more trained to handle things such as an icy swim because their bodies are even more adapted to the strain put on them by swimming for long distances and periods of time without stopping. Most Olympic swimmers are about short bursts of strength and speed but when it comes to endurance swimming, it is all about putting in the distance and length of time required to complete a race.
Let’s hope Lewis Pugh continues to perform feats of endurance like this to keep raising worthy issues before it becomes too late.
Tags: