New Year's Day - 2014

On the water at Lake Mead - New Year's Day, 2014

The morning of Jan 1st found me doing something that I had no idea I was doing 24 hours earlier.  When I got home from work on New Year's Eve, there was a post on Facebook about the 1st Annual Polar Bear swim at Lake Mead's Boulder Beach.  Sure enough, we were out there with me as a rescue kayaker and my wife swimming.  There were about 20 swimmers who completed the 400 meter open water swim.   Temperatures were 58 degrees for the water and 48 degrees for the air.


I parked the kayak near the turnaround buoy.  Two ladies, including my wife, took the lead and quickly swam to the buoy, posed for a picture and pushed back to the shore.  In between their turnaround and the next arrivals, the photographer snapped the quick picture of me.  After that, I continued to stay at the buoy until the last swimmer reached it and turned back to shore.  Once everybody was back on the beach, I hopped out of my kayak and enjoyed some hot chocolate.

Oh yeah, afterwards, I went for a fast 10.28 mile run that took me from the Boulder Beach picnic area on an out-and-back through five tunnels (yes, the same tunnels from a couple recent races) by the Hoover Dam.

Overall, it was a great way to spend the first morning of 2014.