‘Like putting your brain in the freezer’, Joburg man says after ice mile swim

NICOLA MILTZ

The former professional cage fighter and personal fitness entrepreneur, recovering drug addict (12 years clean), and adrenalin junkie successfully swam an ice mile recently.

“I’ve done some crazy things in my life, but this was without doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’d say it’s the hardest mile in any sport,” said Mayers this week.

Mayers took part in the recent South African Ice Swimming Championships held at Afriski Mountain Resort in Lesotho, where he swam 1 609m in 1.7 degrees centigrade. The swim, which took him 33 minutes to complete, was ratified by the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA), making him the 348th person to achieve this worldwide.

The rules for swimming an ice mile are simple: swim a mile (1 609m) unassisted in water that is below 5 degrees, under doctor’s supervision, armed with only a pair of goggles, a Speedo, and a swimming cap.

It’s punishing in the extreme, and can be dangerous. Participants are known to break a layer of ice to create a path to swim in.

“I do it for the extreme challenge because, believe me, there’s no enjoyment in nearly freezing to death,” he told the SA Jewish Report.

This is what almost happened. His core temperature straight after the swim was dangerously low at 24°C. It took a couple of hours to regulate his body temperature – and thaw him out.

“I wasn’t scared, I was too cold to know what was going on, but afterwards I was told that I was in trouble,” he said.

The altitude in Lesotho at 3 222m above sea level added another dimension to the brutal swim, said Mayers.

“There is literally no oxygen. Every time you try to breathe, there is no air going into your lungs. So apart from trying to swim in freezing icy water, you are also trying hard not to pass out,” he said.

Relying on sheer grit and determination, Mayers focused on his mantra, “kick, pull, breathe” to get him to the finish. After his mindboggling feat, he posted on Facebook, “Sometimes we have to dig so deep that at the end we are close to the abyss.”

Like the majority of ice milers, he is a long distance open-sea swimmer who was looking for another challenge.

He has completed numerous extreme swims, including three Robben Island crossings, and two 20km extreme swims. He has swum around Cape Point, completed twelve 10km swims, a 40km swim in the Keiskamma River, and a 20km swim in Tanzania. He has also booked to swim the English Channel.

To keep motivated and inspired, Mayers swims for charity and good causes. His last few swims raised money for the Rohan Bloom Foundation, which goes towards a children’s cancer hospice.

In June last year, he took part in the (IISA) Championships in Lesotho, where he swam 200m, 500m, and 1km in 1.7 degrees.

The 200m acclimatisation swim was a wake-up call. “I have never felt pain like this in my entire life. It felt like my hands were going to explode from the pain. I actually had to stop and look at them to see if they were still attached to my arms.”

After completing 1km the following day, he realised his goal would be the ice mile – an extra 609m – which he said makes a massive difference in such extreme conditions.

“When you first get into the icy water, you feel this extreme pain. It’s an arctic temperature. My brain goes numb, my senses slow down, it’s like putting your brain in a freezer,” he said.

The ice mile takes pain to another level.

“It’s easy to stop, but I had trained really hard and put in the hours. I knew I was going to experience hurt, pain, and suffering. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I had set a goal, and I was going to achieve it,” he said.

To prepare for the event, Mayers gained 8kg as extra fat helps insulate the body. “A thin person will die, that’s it. An average person will die after 25 hours if you put them outside in a garden at 1.7 degrees wearing a Speedo. The same person will die after one hour in water.”

That’s because you lose heat 25 times faster in water than on land, he said.

Mayers also swam in unheated outdoor swimming pools in winter for an hour and a half at a time in water temperatures sometimes lower than 10 degrees.

Once a week, he would take an ice bath which entailed sitting in a bath containing 27kg of ice for 35 to 40 minutes.

“After about 20 minutes, mild hypothermia sets in. You start to shake, and your teeth start chattering. It’s very romantic,” he joked.

“When this happens, you need to stay mentally strong because your natural reaction is to get out, but you have to force yourself to go through the pain, and get comfortable experiencing hypothermia.”

Other than lots of swims in very cold water and a lot of pizza, there’s not much else you can do to prepare, he said.

The sport is growing in popularity. According to the IISA, 23 South Africans have succeeded in doing the ice mile. Mayers joins the late, legendary open-sea swimmer, Theo Yach of Cape Town, and Israeli Ram Barkai, who lives in Cape Town.

“The mind is so powerful when you will it to overcome the natural reaction and impulse to stop,” said Mayers, who has a few more extreme swims planned.