That Wasn't The Plan
That Wasn't The Plan
Human stories for those struggling to be human.
A podcast for anyone whose life took a left turn when you were peacefully asleep.
Life doesn't come with a script—thank god, because ours would've been returned for rewrites.
Warning: May cause unexpected feelings, snort-laughing, and the overwhelming urge to text us your own "that wasn't the plan" story.
Join co-hosts Emily White and Courtney Holland as they navigate the beautiful disasters, plot twists, and "well, that happened" moments that nobody warned you about. From bed bugs, winning the lottery, breaking your neck, and finding a furry lump on the side of the road that turns out to be your best friend.
We're here to talk about the stuff that wasn't in your life plan: Getting sober. Couch-surfing at 35. Teaching Jazzercise in a thong leotard at 5 AM (Courtney looks great, by the way). Death showing up uninvited. Your career ghosting you.
Each episode brings you real stories, terrible advice, excellent commiseration, and the reminder that if your life feels like a dumpster fire, at least you're in good company.
New episodes drop weekly. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, because we all need witnesses to this beautiful mess.
Remember: Just because it wasn't the plan doesn't mean it wasn't supposed to happen.
That Wasn't The Plan
Pt. 1 - The Ice Mermaid, Melissa Kegler
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
There are people who set goals.
And then there’s Melissa Kegler—who hears a mildly unhinged suggestion and thinks, yes, that seems reasonable.
In Part 1, we trace the origin story: from pool swimmer to open water wanderer, to casually knocking out the Triple Crown (Catalina, the English Channel, Manhattan… as one does). Along the way: crocodile-adjacent panic, questionable water conditions, dolphins, bioluminescence, and just enough vomiting to keep things grounded.
It’s a story about curiosity, momentum, and the dangerous power of someone asking, “Have you ever thought about…?”
Unfortunately, someone did.
And next week, it gets cold.
That wasn't the plan.
SPEAKER_00Hi, Emily White.
SPEAKER_02Hey Courtney Holland, how are you?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm good.
SPEAKER_02Whoops.
SPEAKER_00My eyes were crossed. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_02Day, lady. Were you thinking really hard when your eyes are crossed there? Sometimes it just feels better to cross your eyes. It does indeed. Welcome to all of our listeners out there too. That wasn't the plan. And we could continue to introduce ourselves all day, but we have an amazing guest on today. And it's going to take me about 30 minutes just to introduce her because there's no stopping this woman. It's a continual like one-upping herself. So I'm just going to get to it. Cut to the chase. So I want to read a little something that our guest today wrote. And she probably wrote this at least six or seven years ago. This was one of her Instagram posts, and it really resonated with me. Um, and surprisingly, Courtney, on our last podcast, when we were kind of scrolling through journals and giving wisdom, this popped up, and I think it was um serendipitous because I knew that Melissa was going to be a guest on and that it just reared its head right there in my face. And I was like, oh my God, I have to introduce Melissa with this quote that she wrote from one of her posts. Okay, so here it is. The huge reason I continue to challenge my perception of what is possible is that I never want my beautiful niece or handsome nephew to grow up believing they can't do something, that they can't dream or believe others when told they can't do it. I want to teach them to be open, curious, to challenge perceptions, to be comfortable exploring the unknown, and to live life on their own terms. To do that, I must continue to challenge myself to change my mindset and to push myself into unfamiliar territory. I may not always succeed, but I will always try, hoping to show them nothing is out of reach. Wander often, wonder always, for the trail of possibility has no end. And that is written by our amazing guest, Melissa Kegler. And before I bring her on, I kind of just want to let everybody know who this amazing human is. All right, so Melissa Kegler was born in Holt, Michigan and swam for Alma College. She is a marathon, a channel, and an ice swimmer based in the Pacific Northwest here in Seattle. She also has a full-time job outside of swimming, which is project management consultant. And so she's not technically a full-time athlete, although in between her full-time job, she is a full-time athlete with all of the rest of her time. She is part of an open water swimming community group here in Seattle called the Notorious Alki Swimmers who train year off Alki Beach. This is where I met her. She is known to others around the planet as the Triple Crown Mermaid and the Ice Mermaid. She has completed two of the ocean's seven channel swims and achieved the triple crown of open water swimming. Now, for those who don't know anything about open water swimming, the triple crown is one of the highest accolades you can have. And that is, there are three swims. The first one being the Catalina Channel, which is approximately 20 miles between Santa Catalina Island and the Southern California mainland. The second one is the English Channel, approximately 21 miles between England and France. And the third one is called 20 Bridges, and that's approximately 28.5 miles. It's a circumnavigation of Manhattan Island in New York City. Melissa is also known for her body positivity in endurance sports, not having the stereotypical elite athlete build. She has had a documentary film made about her called Ice Mermaid Cold Resolve. And this documentary follows her journey into ice swimming. And for those who don't know, which is probably 98.5% of the planet out there, what ice swimming is. It has to be in water below five degrees Celsius or under 41 degrees Fahrenheit. And as of one week ago, Monday, March 16th, 2026, she has reclaimed and now holds the US ice swimming distance record, male, female, whomever, of 2.83 kilometers at 40.2 degrees Fahrenheit, although the fire department was reading 38.3 degrees Fahrenheit. It took her slightly over an hour, and this happened in Court d'Alene, Idaho. So without further ado, I'm gonna cry. Melissa Kigler, thank you so much. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00She's your queen to be.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_02My God. Melissa, I mean, it's just to me, you are an incredible person because over the 10 years that I've known you, when you set your sights on something, you actually go after that. And I'd say nine times out of ten, you make that happen. And whether that's in sports, in romance, or anything else in life, um you're a powerhouse and welcome. Thank you. Yeah. How okay, so you went from swimming in college in a pool. Yes. What got you into open water swimming?
SPEAKER_01Um I was saying nothing, nothing special. So I when I was swimming in college, I had a really, really bad first couple years, and that when I went to college, I got slower each year. So I actually quit the college swim team um the beginning of my junior year of college and never never went back. So I decided to focus on my studies and continued to swim with my club team. And after college, I ended up moving a couple of years after I graduated to the Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. area. And honestly, was just really struggling for something to do. Um, I'm not a gym person, I don't like running land sports. It's just, it's hot, you're sweaty, it's not for me. And I was trying to think, well, what can I do to actually exercise? So I got back into master swimming, and I feel like master swimming is an interesting world where you're always too fast or too slow.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01What is master swimming? I'm sorry. Um, master swimming is 18-year-old plus swim group. So it's um okay. It's just the adult when you're out of, you know, um, like high school swimming and stuff. So they have a master's group that's specifically for 18 plus. Gotcha. But you're always too fast or too slow for some lane, and you never, at least I could never really find a place to fit in in the pool. So I decided, you know what, I'll try open water swimming. There's an event in Michigan that I love. It's um up in Traverse City and it's the Harbor Springs Coastal Crawl. And um, it's just a beautiful area up in that neck of the woods. And I thought, I'll go there and I'll do the mile. I could do a mile in a pool. I I'll be able to do a mile there. So I signed up for the race and thought, well, maybe, you know, I should I should try open water swimming before that. And um, my aunt who lives in Florida was doing a triathlon. So she switched to a relay and we decided, girls trip, we're going to Florida. And how fun. We're it was really, it was really fun. And um, I said, well, I'll do the swimming leg because this is my opportunity to like try open water swimming before I actually commit to it. And I don't even remember the distance if it was a quarter mile, a half a mile, something like that. And everybody was in wetsuits, and I was so intimidated because you know, I feel like when you're in a wetsuit, you look in shape, no matter what your speed is. It's very intimidating. You know, the wetsuits make everybody have these super athletic looking bodies, and I don't know what to do. I thought I was gonna get eaten by a croc down there or something, like something does that happen? You know, I haven't heard of it, but I was all I was joking with my family the day before, like there's gonna be a crocodile there, there's gonna be an alligator, something, and they assured me there's no crocs on Disney World property. You know, it's just not there. So we get there, and this couple was getting married on this little bridge, taking pictures by this pond. We're walking to our hotel room, and out of the water slithers this what I call a crocodile. And I said, Oh my gosh, there's a crocodile right down to it. Oh no, it's not a crocodile, it's a it's a cayman. Oh I don't care, I don't care what it is. It's scaledy, it's got big teeth, it like moves like a crocodile, it's a crocodile. So I was for sure I was gonna get eaten. Um, and I didn't know what to do either for the triathlon. You know, it's kind of one of those, it's your first one, you have no idea. So my strategy was I'm gonna let everybody go in the water and I'm gonna follow them. And then I'll see what they do, and then I'll make it to the finish. And that was that was what I did. I don't know, it was just something there was something about being out in the open, not being able to see the lane line, and kind of, even though you know it's a predefined set course, navigating your own course at the same time, because you got to go in and out of other swimmers, and you have to pay attention to the turnbuoys, and you have to pay attention to you know where you're going in front of you, the people beside you, how fast you're going, because you don't want to get tired. And so it was this entirely new sensory activity where there's a whole bunch of different things that I had to pay attention to. And I wasn't bad at it. You know, I finished, ended up finishing about middle in the middle of the pack, and I thought, I think I like this. And so I decided to go down to Virginia Beach to do an ocean mile with my sister and to see if I really liked it. And I did, so continued with the coastal crawl in Michigan, and that was kind of my intro to open water swimming, just you know, happened to be something I thought, eh, sounds like a great idea. We'll go ahead and do it. And that event in Florida like really solidified there's this entire new world of swimming that I had no idea about beforehand. And that's I think also unique because I was an adult at that time. I was probably 20, I don't know, 24, maybe. So like early adulthood still. And to do something brand new that you've never heard about and never even been exposed to prior was super cool. So that's kind of where it all all started at that point in time, and um, it was just a really fun experience.
SPEAKER_02Sweet. And so from the East Coast, then you wound up in Seattle. Um however, many years later.
SPEAKER_01And at that point in time, um, I done my first cold water swim. And Emily, this is gonna shock you. I did my first cold water swim in Alcatraz, the the Alcatraz swim, but I was full neoprene. I had the neoprene cap on, I had the full wetsuit.
SPEAKER_02I don't even know if you've ever seen me in a wet suit photos of you in a wetsuit. And I thought to myself, I was like, if Melissa started in a wetsuit then and I started in a wetsuit, like it's possible to get out of the wetsuit, but yep.
SPEAKER_01So that was my intro to cold water swimming, and I froze. I'm actually interested to go back to um to try it without the wetsuit to just see what it feels like and how different it was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But at that time, I had just started thinking about the English channel, and that really came about what was it? It's working with my my coach, and I was talking with him. He was asking how it was, and he he made a comment um that has always stuck with me and said, Have you ever thought about swimming the English channel? And I don't know if he was serious or he was joking, or it doesn't matter the context of what it was. I and I had never really heard about it before. I knew what it was, but I didn't know anything else other than that. And I was so I think I was just naive enough to go, huh, sounds like a great idea. Yeah, let's do it. Before you know it's involved.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, exactly. That's where the thought started, was because one person said one thing and asked me one question. And when I came out to Seattle after Virginia, that's when I met Randy Perkins. Um he was training at the same pool I did. And um, Randy said, Oh, well, you should you should come to Alchi. And because he was thinking about the English channel too. And of course, you know, Randy has his own resume of accomplishments. And so that's how I got to Alki. And I met everybody there and been there ever since. That was, let's see, 2026. So that was 11, 12 years ago now.
SPEAKER_02English Channel was your first channel swim, is that right?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02Okay. No, Catalina was my first one. Yeah, Catalina's my first one. When did you swim, Catalina? What year was that?
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh. Um English Channel. I have my like cheat sheet, my trophy, my dad made me after I did it. Gotta gotta love the parents. Oh my god, how cute! Let's see. So English Channel was 2017, so Cataline was 2016.
SPEAKER_02Holy and so back to back those swims. And then when did you swim Manhattan?
SPEAKER_012018.
SPEAKER_022018. Oh my god, so three years in a row.
SPEAKER_01Three years in a row. And in hindsight, I tell people in the swimmers that I'm mentoring now that are looking at doing the triple crown. In hindsight, if I had known better um and if I'd had more information, I probably would have doubled up on Manhattan and Catalina or Manhattan, England, because at that time, you think about it, you're training, you know, a year or two years ahead of Catalina. Because remember, going into the English Channel, I'd never swum more than three miles. So it was just kind of one of those things, okay, well, I have to go from three miles to the English Channel. How do I do that? And Catalina was going to be my test swim ahead of time. So I trained um for about like a year and a half, two years to get to Catalina, and then another year to get to England. And by that time, I was just fried. I mean, my like body was wrecked, I was tired. New York's not my favorite place for a variety of reasons. Um, I didn't really want to swim in the water there because you hear those horror stories about, you know, swimming around New York. So between all those, I just didn't go into it mentally all there. And I it's not that I was checked out ahead of time. It just wasn't, you know, you have some of those races that are kind of check the box races. That was my check the box event for me. Um, but got it done. So in hindsight, I would have done it maybe earlier in the year in May-ish, and then maybe done England in August, September, if I could. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Can I ask, what are what are some of the horror stories about New York swimming around New York?
SPEAKER_01That's what I was gonna ask. Well done in the world. I mean, that's yeah, that's the thing. There there wasn't anything bad that really happened. I mean, it the the weather was really bad for me. Um, I had a huge, there's a huge heat wave that came. So come coming from Seattle, I intentionally picked the early running of that event specifically so I could have the coldest water and the coldest weather possible. Um, so there's heat wave, and it was uh it was like 102 full sun, no clouds, and it was just one of those like my my ice and my water bottles melted inside the cooler before halfway, so I didn't have the ability to, you know, cool my body down. Um, the wind was really, really bad. And normally that event is the quickest event because you get the current that pushes you around the island super fast. Um, for me, the wind was going the opposite way, and it was the slowest of the events. But a lot of the horror stories like people said about it didn't really happen. Now that being said, there's some nastiness. There's a nastiness. We did see, we did see some dead floating rats. Um, and there were there, let's see, there's like a police issue on one of the bridges with a jumper that we went under. So that's kind of like harrowing when you see the police presidents, knowing is something meaning a person gonna go in the water the same time I'm swimming under it. Um, I saw a man taking a dump off of a rock into the water when I was swimming by on one of the one of the parks. So that wasn't optimal. That wasn't optimal. I love um, you know, I love like animals and seeing things. So people kept saying afterwards, and I didn't know they were joking, like, hey, did you did you see the the silverfish? The I think they called them the Harlem silverfish. I'm like, no, no, I didn't see any of those. I've never heard of this type of fish before. I mean, it it wasn't clear, but I didn't see anything, and so I thought they were serious, and they were talking about the floating used condoms in the water.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad I didn't see the Harlem silverfish.
SPEAKER_00That's nasty water, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I was fully anticipating getting sick afterwards. Um but I didn't, so that's positive too. That's good so but it wasn't as bad as people said. Yeah, people said the water was super nasty. I mean, you there are definitely areas you could taste the creosote in the more industrial area, but like the water, relatively speaking, I thought was like pretty clean. And it was a beautiful swim. It's just I was hot. I was hot the whole way. Um, I didn't know at that time spinach doesn't sit very well in my stomach. And I had spinach the night before, so I was I was puking spinach a majority of the way, and definitely right after. So it was a bit it was an anticlimactic finish to my triple crown because I literally got out, ran to the bathroom, threw up for a half an hour, and then went to the hotel, tried to eat pizza, couldn't, and it was just a it was a letdown in general. Yeah. But that was that was pretty much the uh the cumulative story. It's the water is better than what people say it is. Um, it's a really beautiful route. If you like the city, it was just really bad conditions for me. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Out of your three channel swims, which what was your favorite or your three for the triple crown?
SPEAKER_01Ooh, that is that is a good question. You know, if I had to do one over, I would pick Catalina because it was so beautiful. Um, now I had issues in Catalina too, because that was my first major channel swim. I didn't know I got seasick, so I was throwing up for you know 11 of the 12 hours of the swim. Um, but it was there were moments of beauty in that swim that I think could not replace any other swim that I've done, even though that was a very painful swim. The most prepared I've been, and for lack of better words, the easiest was English channel, but there's there's a beauty about Catalina. And I remember getting in the water and the bioluminescence when you put your hand through was just so bright. It was bright neon green bubbles, and and you could just see everything. And it was just the most beautiful thing I've ever ever seen. And I remember the, you know, those times I was feeling super sick during night, and I had a moonless night, didn't do very well planning on that one. So with the moonless night, you can't differentiate the horizon from the sea. But what that does do is it creates this pitch black vastness that you're looking for. And so when you have shooting stars, they're super bright. So I would take a breath every now and then, and twice I saw a shooting star during my breath, which was, I mean, I feel like that's super a really unique experience that you're not gonna get in a more light polluted or heavy, heavy shipping channel. And then there's the wildlife. I mean, the dolphins were like out of control in Catalina. And I remember at the end there was this um, there was a whale. I didn't see it, my crew did, but there was a whale, and so I video of the whale. They weren't paying attention to me, the swimmer, like they're supposed to be, but I wouldn't either if I if I was on crew. I had a whale. That would be hard. But I remember um Scott Loutman was he was pacing me through the last couple of hours. We were getting closer, the super pot of dolphins came, and there were these three adults and a baby that were swimming like belly up underneath me. And it just felt like Oh my god. I mean, it felt like I could reach out and touch them. I mean, it felt like they were swimming with us too. So there was all this wonderfulness where I think if I did it again, if I could get guaranteed good conditions, which I wouldn't because it's, you know, nature, but if I could do everything again, it would be that swim because there's such magic properties, I think, to the water out there. And um, And I've seen some really nasty swims in Catalina that I've crewed for. So that's where I think, oh yeah, I might want to do it again. And then I remember other people's swim and go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm fine. I don't need to do it again. So I have a question. So the you two ladies know swimming. I mean, I know like swim team stuff, but I know nothing about open swimming. So you have a crew with you, you have somebody like so I don't know any of that. So paint it like for the big dum-dum in the middle here.
SPEAKER_01So depending on what distance you do, you always have a certain number of crew members with you, um, including the boat crew. So the primary thing is you're you're gonna have a boat pilot. Um, there's a few marathon swims. Um, usually they're like fishing boats, big I don't know, sport fishing boats that take you out.
SPEAKER_02Except for when they break down and you have to do this real, real small boat, which I had to do in Tahoe, and it sucked ass. But that's another story.
SPEAKER_01I think that was the same type of boat I had in New York. There was like no shade for the crew and they got burnt to smithereens. Yeah. Um but normally in the big channels it's it's a fishing boat, but you'll have some type of boat. There's a few marathon swims where it's kayak only, but that's usually if it's the event is super close to shore. So you're never gonna have kayak only for a cross-channel swim. Yeah. Um but the the boat usually has at least two crew members, so the the primary boat pilot and then a backup so they can switch off for tiredness and safety. Um, and then you have your observer, which usually there's one or two observers depending on the type of crossing, which are the individuals from the ratification body um that you're swimming under. So, like Catalina Channel has a Catalina um channel swimming federation. So they'll supply an observer or two, depending on the length of swim. And they're primarily responsible for watching your swim, making sure you adhere to and follow the rules, documenting everything so it can be submitted for ratification through the organization body. Okay. And then you have your crew, which can range anywhere from usually one to four people, unless you're doing a relay, and then essentially the relay team is the crew. Um, but there's usually a lead crew member and then a couple other people on the boat to help. So at any point in time, I would say there's between four and ten people, depending on the distance, length, the type of swim, and things like that. And they're all there to just make sure, you know, you're safe. The observers there and make sure you follow the rules. For solace swims, your crew feeds you, provides you nutrition, um, support swims you if you want a support swimmer, things like that. Uh, so they feed you. They do you stop or do you swimming and eating? And what kind of food do you get? Normal swimmers stop and tread water. You can't touch the boat. The really elite channel swimmers have, I don't know how they do this. They develop the ability to like switch over and continue to do backstroke with one arm while they're like drinking with another. I don't know how they do it. Um, for me, I would definitely choke if I tried to do that or something. But um, normally you'll stop for, you know, 30 seconds or or whatever it is, and they'll it's pretty basic. You usually have a bottle tied to a string, they chuck it overboard and you get it and you drink it. Um, I feed off of entirely liquid calories. Solid food really hurts my stomach, so I don't do solid food, but it's really swimmer dependent. So I know a lot of swimmers that use solid food. Um, and they'll do whether the solid food is like a goo gel, oatmeal, bananas, peaches. Um some swimmers do starchy stuff. Hot dogs. If I wish I mean the smell of a hot dog on that swim.
SPEAKER_00Oh, bless your little heart. So delicious.
SPEAKER_01Um I think I've heard of swimmers doing chicken noodle soup, you know, things that have a little bit more texture to them. For me, it just doesn't work. So I do liquid, liquid calories only.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So Courtney, it's usually like a powdered, some sort of carbohydrate protein mix, and then it gets mixed up and put in the water bottles so that you're continually like getting all these calories in your system because you're burning so many calories. Well, of course. But Melissa, explain to Courtney, in addition to like the rules, like you can't touch the boat, what are the other rules for marathon or open water swimming? Because there's a lot, and I know that it's controversial within our swim community. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's there's a ton. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So at any, depending on the ratification body, they all have slightly different rules, but there's a primary golden set of rules that you have to abide to. But at any point in time for any swim, including ice swimming, you will have a rule book of 20 to 30 pages long, of all the rules that you have to adhere to as well as your crew. Um, the main ones are swimming attire, so no thermal protection, so goggles, swim cap, ear club, earplugs, nose clip, and swimsuit. You can't use any of those things. Oh, okay. You're those are the only things you can use. Okay.
SPEAKER_02You can't even Courtney, you can't even wear a watch or a heart rate monitor. None of that. No, nothing. Nothing.
SPEAKER_01So those are that's kind of cool.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01Those are um people say that those can be used for pacing aids. Yeah. Um oh right.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I I personally don't see any issue with watches, but I'm not the organizer. So I mean, nothing's really gonna help you pace those conditions anyway. Um but can't do watches. Um for marathon swimming, you can't wear the the safety belts and uh toe floats that'll is popular for marathon swimming now. That one is really controversial. Um it's like a it's like a I don't know, a blow-up dry bag bubble that is clipped to a belt that you wear around your waist. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00So it doesn't have anything to do with the toe. I was like, what do you guys got with the thing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like a little, it's more for visibility and then also dry bag for your keys or something if you're if you're alone. But people are worried because you can't touch the boat, that if you have a toe float, you're gonna hold on to it and essentially take a break and float with it. Um, there is definitely some controversial in the swim community thoughts about the use of toe floats due to recent accidents that have happened with swimmers who weren't wearing it with drowning and other things. I don't know. I can see both sides of it. Um, and I could probably like support an argument either way with it. Yeah. Um now for ice swimming, it's different. They do recommend wearing the toe float um because of the higher risk and higher like likelihood of something catastrophic happening to a swimmer in ice swimming. Um, I always wear one for mine because I have um I also have cold ureticaria, so I have an allergy to the cold water.
SPEAKER_02She's allergic to cold water. She holds the US record for cold water, which I'm sure we can touch on later.
SPEAKER_01So I have we're gonna circle back. Uh yeah, so that's why I make sure I wear one because I have additional risks that other people don't have for that.
SPEAKER_00Melissa, you better quit Lionel. You full of it.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, I'm I'm allergic to cold water. And that's always a fun one to tell my medical officer, you know, during the thing. You know, by the way, here's my EpiPen just in case something happens. Because oh, by the way, I'm I'm allergic to uh I'm allergic to the cold. So there's that.
SPEAKER_02Unbelievable. That's actually a good segue. Um, how did you get phenomenal marathon swimming? Because at that point when I knew you, you had just, you know, finished your triple crown, and I was like, this bitch is gonna go for Ocean Seven, which is the seven big channel crossings in the world. It's like the mother of ocean open water swimming. Like, you know, there's only a handful of people, maybe I don't, I don't know exactly the number who have accomplished this throughout the world. But Melissa chose maybe not to continue on with that immediately. I don't know if you're gonna get there, but she chose to go ice swimming. Did you say to yourself one winter, probably the middle of January, early February, when it is cold, cold, cold here in Seattle and the water is, you know, I don't know what are we down to like 44 degrees, 43 degrees right now in Puget Sound. It is cold, really, really cold. And she's like, This is not cold enough.
SPEAKER_01I want to be miserable.
SPEAKER_02What do I do?
SPEAKER_01I would say there's not much more to it than that. So very um, very similar to how I got into the English Channel by somebody asking me the question. Um, Jerome Leslie, who swims with us at Alki, he is an ice swimmer originally from the the Boston, New England area. And um, he just asked me one time, he said, Hey, have you ever thought about ice swimming and doing the ice mile? I'm like, hmm, I don't know what that is, but it sounds like a great idea. Maybe I'm gonna do it. And that was it. That's all it took is that one question, one question again. Um, and that, you know, aside from that's how I got into it, um, you know, a couple of years ago, I was reflecting on just the importance of being mindful of the things you say. Because I think about my life in two people, you know, the first one, my swim coach in Virginia. Um, I didn't know him very well. And he wasn't, he wasn't a coach coach. I just thought my swim strokes were getting sloppy. I wanted a private instructor to, you know, just tidy me up a bit, you know, make sure my form was good. And, you know, that that person that I didn't know very well mentioned and asked one question, and it completely changed the trajectory of my life and goals, asking, when are you, you know, what are you going to do with English Channel? And I think about Jerome, and I knew him a lot better, obviously, because I've been swimming with him for a few years, but that one question has changed everything I've also known about swimming. And I think about all the times people have asked me things, and you know, I I just kind of reflect back sometimes. What are the things I've told people positively or negatively? What are the questions I've asked? How have I phrased things? And how may the impact or how has the impact of my words affected people? And it just made me a lot more mindful of if somebody asks me a question that sounds crazy, maybe I need to be more careful of the way I respond to them. And, you know, to to not necessarily, you know, shut down their question or their idea, but maybe open it up and let them explore it a little bit. Maybe they're not ever going to do what they asked about. But if I respond with an open-ended question, an open-ended answer to let them start exploring their idea, you know, who knows where that's gonna lead. So that's kind of a side comment to the question, but I think about that a lot. And I really try now to work hard to be mindful of the things I do say so that people can either be inspired or inspired at their own will versus you know what I perceive they can do.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01But long story short, super interesting. Jerome asked me if I was gonna do it, and I thought it sounded like a great idea.
SPEAKER_02So you started um I know they do the ice smile. They have an event out in Boston, right? Did you go do that?
SPEAKER_01No, so that was one I I didn't do. Um, I was gonna go to one of the actual events where they have the ice smile, but it's pretty like it's pretty intimidating when you don't know anything out of about a sport to just go do it. And I thought, ooh, I don't know that I want to do it for the first time in a big group because I haven't really trained. I mean, I'm just here in Seattle, and it's now granted it's cold water here, but I don't really know how to train. And at that time, um, I was just getting to know Sarah Thomas and um she was putting on a small ice mile group for some of her swimmers that swim with crows in the swim team in Colorado in Denver. And so we had started to get to know each other a little bit um as friends. And Jerome said, Oh, well, I heard Sarah's doing this thing out in Denver. I'm like, huh. Maybe I can invite myself out to it. And but it's it's one of those you don't want to invite yourself in push. So I casually mentioned it and got myself invited out to it. So I was I was excited. And there are four people that were doing it, two heats of two, and it was all of our first ice miles. And I thought, okay, it's a very safe location. The lake was fantastic, and this will be it's a smaller group, smaller crew. So I think I'll be comfortable going out and doing my first ice mile there because I know some of the people, so I'm comfortable again with the people who are hosting it. And it just seemed like a really good way for an introduction into a sport that I knew nothing about. And so Jerome prepped me. He told me everything I would need to know about it and all the positives and negatives of what I would feel. And I remember him saying, You're either gonna love it when you're done, or you're gonna hate it and never want to do it again, and you won't know until you're done. And I remember getting out of the water, freezing, still being semi-coherent and thinking, huh, I just did it and I really liked it. And I think I could do it again, and I think I could do more because I'm still semi-aware of what's going on. I don't feel as bad as I thought I was gonna feel. Like I feel like I'm only mildly hypothermic, so I think I could still do more. And I don't know, it was just something that I was so curious about because again, I was naive. I knew nothing about this more and I had been training for it for not that long, but maybe longer if you you know think about the cold water of Al Qaeda year-round. So the the training period is subjective, I guess you could say. And I was just thinking, I I don't know anything about this sport, but I really enjoyed my first experience. And I wonder what I would feel like if I did more. And that's how the 2.2K came about, um, that is now turned into the 2.8K, which is the precursor to next year's plan, hopefully.
SPEAKER_02Uh oh, let's get into that. Um so when was it? And it must have been what four or five years ago when you first held the US record for ice swimming.
SPEAKER_01Yep. 20 and 22. 2022. Okay. I was looking for more scenic places to do it because in my head I had an ice swim just happening in a scenic place, and it ended up being um in Renton of all places, which I wasn't expecting. I didn't even know there were lakes in Renton, you know, other than I guess so Lake Washington. But where's Renton?
SPEAKER_02South of Seattle, just like it's part of Seattle from Washington.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like it's like a suburb, suburb of Seattle. In in Renton isn't, we'll say, isn't known for its its abundance of outdoor beauty. Right. Got it. Yes. Copy that. Um, so when I first heard about this lake in Renton, where which our other swimmer friend lived at, I thought, well, I'll go check it out, but I'm probably not gonna swim there because it's it's in the middle of a city and it was so beautiful, and the fog was coming off the lake, and it was at this bottom of this like park hill. And I just thought, wow, if this lake gets cold enough, I think this is where it's gonna be. And it and it did.
SPEAKER_00Oh cool.
SPEAKER_01So the lake froze over on a Monday, and we watched the just kind of monitored temperatures all week that week and rechecked Wednesday when it thought out, and it was perfect, and planned the swim for Friday and got in and did it.
SPEAKER_02Tell people that are listening what it's like to climb into like let's just say 39, 40 degree water. What is it like to swim in that? Do you climb in or do you just jump in?
SPEAKER_00That's my first question.
SPEAKER_01Definitely not jump. So I am what the the Al Kai swimmers know as a stander. I like I like taking my time. Um, you can't stand forever in those, but I I definitely, when it's that cold, I I still like to kind of slowly inch my way in, kind of get a feel for it. But it's really interesting because when the water is about 42, 44, it's cold enough where you feel all the pins and needles in your in your fingers and your toes, but it's not cold enough to have that feeling removed. And it's once it gets below 42, and all my swims have started out with the exception of my last one, between 37 and 39. So it's really it's been really cold. And the 2.2k was interesting because the temperature actually dropped during the swim, which is highly unusual. I describe getting into water that cold is it's almost like going into what I imagine a vacuum of space or a black hole would feel like. You can feel that something is around you and you can feel like something is enveloping you, but it's so cold you can't tell what that substance is. And it's it's just a very weird feeling because you don't get that sensation, or at least I don't get the sensation of the um the tingles in my fingers and toes. You just feel like you're being enveloped in some substance, and it takes a little bit of swimming for it to really register, and then you start getting cold. But it's just such an interesting experience because you're going into this place, and again, obviously I've never been in a black hole, but I imagine if I was in space that that's what it would feel like. It's just this vacuum of something that your body doesn't register until you kind of start moving through it swimming. And then you feel all the horribleness. I mean, then you feel then you feel like the pain of you know those pre-hypothermia signs. But that first, like that first five minutes of when your body's really registering with your brain what's gonna happen, it's the coolest feeling ever. Because it's just I don't I don't know how to describe it other than that. That's a great description.
SPEAKER_02That was beautiful. So then the pre-hypothermia like starts to set in. What is that? What happens? Yeah, describe that and then describe when you get out, kind of that afterdrop, and what hypothermia actually is and what it feels like.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So the the pre-hypothermic, you can tell it's happening in the water because you'll feel these. Um, your skin will feel like it's on fire in the water, and it'll feel literally like you have a hot pan, and then it'll go through the tingling and pain, and then you'll feel nothing. And so that's really weird because you have to, you know, you have to continue to move your arms and you have to do all these things, not knowing really if you're doing it or not, and not knowing if you're really moving, moving at the speed you're supposed to. So that's why the training is so important because you have to rely entirely on muscle memory, and you have to trust your crew that when they say, So your crew is on shore uh taking stroke count, and you have to trust that they're gonna be able to know you enough and you put the proper precautions in place to monitor your stroke count. So, for example, for me, um, I always set a limit where if my stroke count drops below this, you pull me no matter what, even if I feel okay, like pull me and I'm out, because I'm not gonna know if my stroke count drops. Um, but then your jaws will start tightening and you'll start kind of clenching, you know, in your face. Um, once you've been in too long, you're gonna start shivering in the water, and then it's really bad if that shivering stops. So that's something I'm super mindful of. Um luckily that hasn't happened. So I've gotten just to the shivering point in the water, but then your brain goes too, and you start just thinking of these random things, and then you don't know if you're remembering what you're thinking about is something you're supposed to remember or not. And so you kind of go into this like back and forth, because for me, for focus, I try to remember something, and I always say, okay, on this next lap, I'm gonna tell Stacy, who's on crew, that I think I'm cold, or you know, just something to focus on. So then you start always thinking about okay, I have to remember to tell Stacy I'm cold, I have to remember to. Stay staying cold. I have to remember this. Who wait a minute? Am I re do I remember? Ooh, what's what's for lunch? And it's just this like random thought process. And then you start thinking about, like, ooh, maybe I want this for lunch. I have a call tomorrow for work. When am I leaving for Christmas? Oh no. Did I lock the front door and turn the toaster off? Wait a minute. I was supposed to remember something. And so it's just this like thought process. And you don't know at that time, am I starting to become delirious?
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01What am I trying to remember? And oh, oh yeah, I was supposed to remember to tell Stacy I'm cold. I remember it. So am I remembering things or am I still like off my rocker? And you just don't, you just don't know what you're thinking and how to trust and how to trust yourself. Right. So that's and I know when those thoughts start coming in, I'm like, I'm going in general.
SPEAKER_02So do you know approximately, because I do, I know when certain um things start to happen with my hands and my lips and my brain, that I'm like, all right, I've got about five more minutes before I have to get out of the water. Things could turn south real quick. Do you have that too?
SPEAKER_01Um I would say yes and no in the fact that yes, I know typically for me at certain point when things happen, if it's normal or not for those things to happen. So I know for me, at about like a thousand to twelve hundred meters, I'm gonna start feeling really cold almost every swim. Now, the difference is I have a goal that I have to get to. So getting out isn't really an option for me at that point because um if I haven't hit any of my self-imposed safety rules, then I'm gonna swim until somebody tells me to get out. Or um I feel really, or if I feel really unsafe, which no we'll talk about later for my recent swim, because there are some anomaly outliers, first time things that happened this past swim. But for me, I just swim in until somebody tells me I'm done, or you know, I I get pulled. So when I haven't gotten pulled yet, knock on wood. That that doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, so for me, I just get out and and and the getting out piece is is that can be challenging because that's when things, you know, when you start talking about hypothermia, that's when things go downhill really quickly. And Kirby's um swim at Kirby's house on Lake Desire and Renton, the 2.2K, um, that was a unique situation in that there were some floods that happened before that, so a shore exit wasn't possible based on the sediment makeup of the lake. So I had to get out over the ladder on the dock. And I remember in all my test runs at it at the house and getting up the ladder, it wasn't a problem. And then after that swim, I made it up, I think the second step, and then my legs just froze. I was like, oh, I'm stuck, I can't get out. So my mom and Jeff, one of my crew members, helped, you know, essentially pull me up the ladder. And I remember walking to the house and telling people repeatedly, don't forget to untie my bottom, like the tie on the bottom of your swimsuit. And I remember them telling me, yep, yep, yep, Melissa, we we got it. You said that multiple times. So I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I told them multiple times and and they were sick of hearing me say it. And then you get into the house. Exactly. You get into the house, and then your body temperature starts dropping quickly as you rewarm because your fingers and your toes and your extremities, when they start to warm up, the blood goes into everything and pulls all the cold from the previous like areas that were cut off. So once the blood goes in, pulls the cold, it goes directly into your heart, and that's when your core temperature drops. And then the shivering starts, and the brain is pretty fuzzy. You know, I've never gone unconscious or blacked out, and I've seen it happen to people before. Sure. So I feel very thankful. But that's why I have my crew and my medical team on site. In case something does happen, they can call 911 immediately. Um, but for me, it's about 45 minutes of shivering. And then something happens where like the cortisol levels to the brain return and you're, you know, shivering, and then all of and you don't know what's going on, then all of a sudden, okay guys. And that's it. And it's happen, it's happened like that every single time, too. Wow. Where it's just been this like immense shivering, kind of understanding things but not understanding things at the same time, being aware of where you are, but not being aware of where you are. Kind kind of like in the movies when they have um people in surgery and but they're like they're having out-of-body experience and they're watching them. It's kind of like that, and then just like that, it's over.
SPEAKER_00Are you sitting with with a blanket? Are you have you taken your suit off? Are you in regular clothes? Like, what what do you do to spend that time? Yep, the swimsuit is off.
SPEAKER_01So the crew, um, one of the biggest pieces of advice advice that I've gotten, and probably the best advice that I've gotten, is allow your crew to help you when you're done. So there are some people that are pretty stubborn with things and they like trying to undress and try to change. And, you know, I mean, Emily, you'll know when it's cold outside, it takes forever to change because your body is just going in slow motion.
SPEAKER_02So and your fingers are so cold, they don't work.
SPEAKER_01It takes like five minutes to try and just like zip up your coat. Um, so the best piece of advice is hold on to something, sit down, and just let your crew get your suit off and get you changed as quick as possible.
SPEAKER_02Let others help you. Yeah, let others help you. I'll just mention real quick, Courtney. Melissa swims in a hot pink bikini. Yes.
SPEAKER_00I was picturing purple, but I will accept the hot pink.
SPEAKER_02She's got some really cute yellow bottoms, right?
SPEAKER_01Yellow, I think, that are like I uh I have pretty much every color. Um but pink is kind of neon pink is my signature color, I feel.
SPEAKER_00Super cute.
unknownYes!
SPEAKER_01I'm definitely, I'm definitely like a pink girl. I go through a lot of work to figure out, okay, what am I feeling for this swim? What color feels like me this day? I gotta match the nails, I gotta match the toenails. I start growing my my like fingernails and toenails out a couple weeks prior in case I feel like getting a real manicure. Yeah. Um so it's definitely like intentional fashion choice on the day of the swim. One of my other friends, one of my other friends says, look good, feel good. So that's what I'm going with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So that swim you were just describing happened in 2022. And at that point, it right after, shortly thereafter, swim is ratified and you held the US record for the longest distance ice swim. How long did you hold that for?
SPEAKER_0130 days. Yeah. That's horse shit. Yeah. Previously, that record um hadn't been attempted for a distance in about 10 years. And um, another woman from the Portland area got it 30 days later, and it was just kind of one of those I mean I'm so happy that somebody else was able to do it. Because that's actually once um long-standing records in the history of uh various sports, once long-standing records are broken, it goes down really quick by a lot of people very frequently afterwards. So, because all of a sudden what wasn't attempted and what didn't seem possible, all of a sudden it is. And so that mental barrier is broken. So, on one hand, I thought, okay, it's happening. Like this moment right now is the evolution of ice swimming in the sport, and it's the evolution of distance ice swimming. And, you know, people are looking at this and using it as a tool and a mechanism to think about where they want to go in their ice swimming career. So I was really, I was so happy that this shift was happening, but selfishly, me and I wanted to hold it for one season.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I wanted I wanted who is she?
SPEAKER_01Not not even a year. I just wanted like one season of you know, six months, whatever it was of holding it. At the same time, I thought, okay, well, I gotta do it again then. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna get it back someday.
SPEAKER_0230 days. That's all she got. But if you know Melissa by now, you know that's not where this story ends. Next week on That Wasn't the Plan, Melissa searches for cold water in one of the warmest winters the Pacific Northwest has ever seen. Canceled boats, closed mountain passes, a lake one-tenth of a degree too warm, and a 24 hour window that almost didn't happen. You do not want to miss it. Thanks for listening to That Wasn't the Plan. If you found it helpful or at least mildly entertaining, a quick rating review and a click on the subscribe button would be lovely. And it genuinely helps us. And if a friend comes to mind, please share. Until next time. Bye.
