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It could have been worse. It could have been snowing, temperatures could have been hugging close to zero, rabid polar bears could have been making brunch out of us while we waited. There are plenty of ways things could have been worse, but still, it was New Year’s Day and there we were, standing on the beach in our bathing suits with temperatures in the relatively comfortable upper 30s, waiting to voluntarily jump into the Atlantic Ocean which, let’s face it, is never even that warm in the summer time.
The New Year’s Day plunge is a common tradition, and one that I had always lumped in the “not on your life” category. I’m a proud wimp and not much of a morning person, never mind the fact that most New Year’s Days begin with a significant headache and the first regret of the year. But this year I was committed to trying new things. How better to do that than with the heavily metaphorical cleansing/rebirth of a symbolic swim.
My wife and one of my co-workers opted for the Frozen Clam Obstaplunge at Goddard Park State Beach, which was held to benefit The Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. The “Obsta” stands for obstacle course, as in we had the choice of either jumping into the water like regular crazy people or running a half-mile, parkour style obstacle course straight out of an army movie training montage and then jump into the water like especially crazy crazy people. My list of new things to experience in the new year didn’t include getting dragged off the beach with most of my bones broken – again, huge wimp – but kudos to the warriors who hurdled over walls, combat crawled through tubes and bounded through an alternating rows of slanted walls like they were Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. They were true ninjas, every single one of them.
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