Polar Bear Plunge for Special Olympics

I know there was a tread a while back when Six Flags and ACE were looking for people to do the plunge on their behalf.

Yesterday was the plunge and it was a success. I and 26 other people donned outfits to look (some more than others) like Mr. Six.

All in all, there were 353 participants at the Lake Bluff location and a total of over $93,000 was raised at just our site.

Here are some pictures (courtesy of midwestcoastermadness.com)

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

Pic 5 (I'm third from the left in the front row)

Pic 6 *** Edited 3/7/2005 4:51:39 AM UTC by redman822***

I did this in maryland with my brother and father (polar bear plunge for special olympics), over 1000 people, probly more, it was insane, a couple weeks back. raised alot of money, and there was a group of "power plungers" who did it every hour for a day or 2, cool stuff!! WHAT A RUSH lol.

I would imagine that based on geography, although still cold Maryland would typically be a bit warmer. :)

Good cause George. Glad you guys were able to raise that much money.

So how long did you actually stay in the water and was it hard to breathe while in it? :)

Water temp can't be any more than just above freezing.

At least it was a beautiful day, for March that is. When I did my polar bear swim it was about zero out. Then again, it was New Years day and I came straight from the bar...

So you were comfortably numb Bob. :)

Someone said the water temp was at 36.

I stayed in for a couple minutes, I guess. There were EMT's in dry suits making sure we didn't go too far out that were about 70 feet from shore. I went all the way out to them and back.

As for the breathing, I was fine, except when the "boys" got hit with the icy cold water for the first time. That did take my breath away for a moment and my knees buckled. ;) And once we got out, it felt warm...after being in the cold water, the warmer air felt good. (Water tranfers temperature more efficiently then air.)