Skip to content
The Life List

Body

Swim in the sea on New Year's Day

The water on the south coast of England is about nine degrees on the first of January, which is cold enough that your body takes over for the first thirty seconds and does all the breathing on its own. Nobody swims far. You walk in with a few hundred people in fancy dress, go under once, and come out laughing at nothing. The drive home with the heater on full is part of it. Many towns run an organised dip with lifeguards and a charity collection. Afterwards, tea tastes better than it has any right to.

Practical

Cost
Free, or a small charity donation
Best time
1 January
Difficulty
Moderate
Time it takes
One morning
What people get wrong
Staying in too long to prove something. Two minutes is plenty; warm up slowly and do not have a hot shower straight away.
With
A group

Add to your list Already done it

Also this

  • Race the Dragon's Back across Wales

    Your socks are wet before breakfast, soaked through in the first bog on the Rhinogydd, and they stay that way for five days.

    Best time:Held biennially in September

  • Run the Marathon des Sables

    The stage lengths are printed on a card you get the night before, and the jump from 30km to 80-plus km never stops feeling unfair.

    Best time:April, before the Sahara heat becomes extreme

  • Run the Comrades Marathon

    The gun for Comrades is a recording of a cockerel crowing, fired in the dark at 5:30am when you can still see your breath.

    Best time:June, Southern Hemisphere winter

  • Swim the English Channel solo

    You smear yourself in lanolin and grease before dawn, not for warmth but to stop your own arms rubbing you raw over the next twelve hours.

    Best time:June to September, when Channel water is warmest

  • Qualify for and run the Boston Marathon

    Hopkinton's town green is small and unremarkable, the kind of place you'd drive through without noticing, except every Patriots' Day since 1897 it has filled with people who ran a qualifying time somewhere else just to stand there.

    Best time:Patriots' Day, third Monday in April

More in Body.