There are a few things in life I can be a little arrogant about. I’m a half decent writer, I’m a diesel engine in that once I start I don’t stop, and I can handle cold water swims rather well. The arctic enema is a challenge I have faced off with twice before in the other Mudders and I went into this one with full arrogance, expecting easy, glory, a little cold and a chance to wash off the mud. Instead I got the scare of a lifetime.
The arctic enema is a cargo container filled with water, and ice. LOTS OF ICE. And half way through the container is a wall that you have to swim under, just to ensure that you get slapped in the face with the cold. I’ve had no problems with it the last few times, so this time my husband and I walked up and got ready to jump in at the same time. One giant cannon ball later, and the real scare started. I got in, and went to swim under the wall. It’s not a couple of inches under the water folks, it’s about 2 feet off of the bottom, so you’re going DOWN. No problem. I went in, I went down and I tried to swim under.
But then the backpack I had on got stuck. Here I am, in water so cold my brain has simply switched off, and I am stuck. The bag is trying to float, pulling me upwards while momentum had me going forwards and I got pinned in place. Now thankfully my body is all for survival, so even with my brain stuck in ‘Cold, stuck, cold’ mode, my body was like ‘dude, come with me if you want to live’. So I try to shimmy backwards, but the upwards pull of my bag jerks me up and I NAIL my skull off of the wall. I finally surface and the team watching the tanks have already realized something went wrong.
My husband is on the other side, being told that no he cannot go back in after me, and the guys on my side were all getting ready to come in after me as I swam to the side and pulled myself out to walk around. At this point in time I don’t remember hitting my head, I only realized the massive knock to the skull later when I was showering and found the tender spot with my fingers. But from this moment out I felt weak and dizzy, and even with adrenaline pumping in my system I was rattled. So was my husband. See, I’m the better swimmer out of the two of us and he knows it, so for him to get in, go under, go across and get out all while I’m still underwater, he knew something had gone wrong.
Thankfully I’m ok, but now I have a very FIRM reminder of why I will not do this kind of thing with a backpack, ever again. On the plus side, we’d gotten passed the 9th kilometer somewhere between the Hay Bales and here, so we were officially over half way finished. And we were all a LOT cleaner.
