ms6073 wrote:
Water temperature is a very personal matter and for some people 80 degrees is cold. Some of the former Navy SEALs that frequent the board will probably chime in on the realities of lengthy exposure to cold water. Back in the 90's, the US Army Ranger School experienced a tragedy during "Jungle" phase when despite numerous safety measures and the students rigorous activities while exposed to several hours of emersion in waist/chest deep waters, several of the Ranger students developed hypothermia resulting in a fatality.
That anecdote has zero applicability here. That happened at the "Florida Phase". By the time the kids hit that phase, they are pretty much shattered. They've lost 10-20lbs because they've not rec'd enough chow, they're incredibly sleep deprived routinely going 2-4days with not the slightest catnap, and they've been on the move almost non-stop carrying a load easily >100lbs. They could move thru the cold water for hours, not generating much heat because of the slow pace of the movement. The FL phase is really tough and making it day by day only only grit and meanness. When one is already low in energy reserves, cold, wind, rain, all those "exposure" pieces are really tough on the body. Nothing like a rested athlete going hard for 15-30min.
http://gress.org/...ger/RangerSchool.htm About 3/4 of the way thru, there is a section titled "Tim Parks, Ranger Buddy". That's a FL phase story.
'85-'88 I was on the college triathlon team in San Diego. We used to swim off of La Jolla Spring -> late Fall. Our temp limit was 63deg. We were all broke college kids, most of us didn't even own a wetsuit. 64-68 was entirely do-able. We'd wear double swim caps, those we could afford. Prior to jumping in the water, we'd go for a jog and do some calisthenics to both reduce the need for a swim warm up and also to elevate body temp. This was the Speedo era, so it was a little goofy by today's standards. Then we'd hit the water and immediately start swimming hard. Hitting the water was a shock at first, but it only took a couple seconds to get used to it.
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