Going In: Cold Water Swimming and a Midlife Turning Point

After twenty five years of coming to Pembrokeshire I finally learned to love the sea and cold water

Twenty five years. That’s how long I’ve been coming to this remote stretch of coastline, studded with beaches and coves, and until this week I could count my swims here on one hand. Two fingers, if I’m being accurate, which also felt like a pretty apt response to how I used to feel about getting in the sea here.

The beaches are stunning. I’ve spent the best holidays here, watching my family grow and gain confidence and to love this stubborn coastline as much as I do. I love the elemental nature of the landscape here, the capricious temperament of its weather.

It’s not that I don’t love the water. I love seeing it, walking the coastal path, watching my family enjoy it while I sit on the beach with a flask of tea and a good book, having conveniently “forgotten” my swimsuit. I used to be perfectly content to stay dry. It was my hair, my contact lenses, the faff of trying to get changed while protecting my modesty. The cold. I hated the cold. And the water here never seems to warm up so much as concede – a little, in August, in a heatwave. The time I did go in before, it was a heatwave. The top metre of water or so felt tolerable, below that, arctic.

I have spent all those years not going in. Decades resisting cold water.

But then something happened. And I’m not quite sure what.

Abermawr, the beach where it all began.

Last week I just got in. Mid-way through the holiday, after I had spent the majority of the previous three days on the sofa. Dan and I had come on our first break without the boys, same location, but a different kind of holiday than ones over the previous two decades. Just the two of us. We had very little planned apart from rest.

One evening we just decided to pootle down to our favourite beach in our costumes and, with no-one watching, I simply waded into the sea. Walking slowly in up to my waist I stood there for a while, acclimatising and watching the light dance around me. And realised it wasn’t so bad. It was cold, but bearable. I took a deep breath, counted myself down and dunked myself in, full body. The was no fanfare (although I did half expect a round of applause – the downside of no-one watching being there was none) and when I’d had enough, I walked my way back out and warmed my body up on the sun-baked stones. It was that easy.

Annoyingly, because Dan and I were both in at the same time I didn’t even get photographic evidence of this momentous event. I did feel it deserved some kind of acknowledgement, however, so messaged a cold-water enthusiast friend who has been trying to convert me for years:

“Guess what?! I just dunked myself in the sea! Not any old sea. The effing freezing Irish Sea! 🥶😂 Then warmed up on the hot pebbles. Proper Pembrokeshire hot/cold therapy!”

I don’t know exactly what shifted. Some of it might be obvious: I’ve written before about the hip pain that’s dominated this whole year, about how tiring it’s been to keep going, to keep saying yes to as much as I can while paying for it with my energy levels and capacity. This holiday was always going to be different, built around rest rather than ambition, because rest was really all I could manage. But I didn’t expect the sea to be part of that rest. I would never expect to actually want to go swimming.

Instead it turned out to be the best thing about the holiday. No itinerary, no-one else to marshall, to remind to bring towels, and trunks, and pants. The beach just down the road. The best of weather. It helped that we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. No modesty to worry about (although I have also reached the age where no fucks are given). The next day we went back. And then again, every day for the rest of our holiday. Although Dan kindly pointed out (as he swam past my tentative, waist-deep hovering into deeper waters) I am less of a cold water swimmer, more a fair weather dipper. Still, it’s a start.

Daisy did not want to be abandoned on shore!

So, is this a midlife thing I’m wondering?

There’s an aspect to this where I’m a fifty-something perimenopausal woman and finally tired of watching from the shore. Where twenty years ago the cold, the effort, the wet hair and the salt-licked skin for the rest of the day would have been the excuses, the reasons not to bother. Now they’re just details, small prices to pay for something I’d like to experience. Midlife has a way of reducing the list of things you’ll defer for later, because later stops feeling guaranteed. And maybe because by this stage of life you know in your bones life is hard, but also that hard things make you feel alive and maybe this is all a part of that.

I know so many wonderful women who swim in lakes, rivers and even the sea, all year round, and they love what it offers them: clarity, a sense of feeling alive.

But maybe there is more. A recent survey of over a thousand British women said that swimming through perimenopause gave them relief from anxiety, mood swings, low mood and hot flushes, especially for those getting in a few times a week rather than once a month. The theory is that a jolt of cold forces your nervous system to spike and then settle, and offers a hard reset for a body that's been experiencing hormonal haywire. Which would explain a lot. This year has been a lot for my frazzled nervous system. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the thing I’ve discovered is a shock so total it leaves no room for anything else. For a few seconds in that water I'm not managing pain, symptoms or anything or anyone else. And certainly not dinner for that evening. I'm just cold and that’s all there is – and something in me seems to reset along with it.

Twenty five years I have stood on this shore and said the water was too cold. This year something shifted. Every time I leave Pembrokeshire I’m planning my next trip back, but from now on those trips might look a little different. I’ll make sure not to “forget” my swimming costume for a start.

Do you love cold water swimming? Where do you swim and how does it make you feel? What do you feel are its benefit? Please share all your tips and experiences!

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If you’d like my personal guide to the best of Pembrokeshire, compiled over twenty five years of coming back, in all seasons, you can read it here. Upgrading to paid membership gives you access to all my favourite places, and more.

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