In the Blue

It has been a year and a half since I started my journey of extending my time in the cold, aiming for the stars, a shot at the female world record, and regaining the U.S. distance record. A year and a half later, I’ve learned more than I ever thought I would, accomplished a major milestone, hopeful and optimistically have my sights still set on furthering my capabilities in the ice. A year and a half later, I’ve endured mental challenges of the waiting game I never knew existed, far beyond anything the “Dover Coaster” could have spat out. A year and a half later, I swam a swim that was a combination of education, planning, investigation, research, and some divine intervention all mixed into one.

A year and a half later, on March 16, 2026, I’ve regained the U.S. ice swimming distance record with a 2.83km ice swim in 4.67C / 40.41F water temperature in Lake Cour d’Alene, Idaho, ratified by the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA), for what was one of if not the hardest and most difficult swims of my life. It was 1hr 17min 59sec of grueling pain that never let up. It was one of the worst performances swimming I’ve ever had, but I was told by my dad and later on by my coach, you don’t have to feel good to perform well. That feeling good on race day is a luxury. To trust in your training and when it comes down to it, those who can suffer the longest will succeed. And that’s what I did, I suffered, and suffered the longest time-wise of any female in ice swimming, and I made it.

This ice swim was my sufferfest.

A year and a half ago, I completed my ice mile qualifying swim in Belfair, WA in the Hood Canal. It was a perfect PNW experience with my friends and crew, crystal clear turquoise water, and accompanied by three seal friends as “support seals”. I had started training for a world record (WR) attempt six months earlier, so by the time this swim came around, I felt great. I was in shape, swam well, recovered well, and felt like I was in a good place going into the upcoming ice season. All ice swims have a little drama mixed in it seems, but nothing could have taken away from the sheer beauty and awesomeness of this day. I even celebrated on the way home with an ice cream sandwich at my favorite stop!

I continued to train the next year and had this idea that a summer ice swim was possible. I had arranged to go to Alaska to complete the swim as a part of Afterdrop (sequel to Ice Mermaid: Cold Resolve streaming on Cascade PBS), but due to multiple issues with funding due to Administration changes pulling the plug on many resources, tightening budgets, health issues that put me out for a month, it was stressful to say the least. I managed to get things sorted, worked through personal finances to make it happen despite funding for Afterdop not making the cut, and got my health back on track to continue training. Then the final nail in the coffin, less than a month before my swim departure, a mechanical issue on my boat that would not be repaired before the end of the summer.

Graciously, the Captain put all of his charters on other vessels. But when I called to discuss details with the new Captain of the alternate charter, a major issue, no swim step. No swim step means there was no way to get me out of the water once I got in. Safety is always my number one priority, for myself and my crew, on any swim and without this key element, I made the difficult decision to cancel my swim. Given the location, the time, and money invested, not having a swim step or platform, it was too risky to jerry-rig something up that may or may not work. Also given it was mid-tourist season in Alaska, I was not able to find another vessel that was safe. At that point, I had been training for a year and the fact I had to call it was heartbreaking. My coach, Dan Simonelli – Open Water Swim Academy, both agreed that it was the right choice.

In addition to the swim, this also put a halt of Afterdrop, which I was really excited about. The sequel to Ice Mermaid: Cold Resolve, Afterdrop focused on climate change, through the lense of the relationship between athletics, art, and science. I met and worked with renowned glaciologist, Mauri Pelto, who has lead the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project, documenting and conducting filed research monitoring glacial recede of the Noth Cascade glaciers for the past 41 years (since 1984). Jill Pelto, specializing in climate art and science communication, uses her art and paining to incorporate data about environment changes. Both Mauri and Jill have contributed to a better understanding of climate change by connecting scientifically and emotionally to their audience, as show in the Shaped by Ice short film, supported by Protect Our Winters (POW), and produced by Ice Mermaid’s Dan McComb.

In addition, we spoke with several other scientists and industry professionals, such as Dr. Heather Massey, and Associate Professor in Extreme Environments and Physiology and a member of the Extreme Environments Laboratory and Clinical, Health and Rehabilitation Research Team (CHaRT) at the University of Portsmouth. I had the opportunity to meet her in 2025 to do cold plunge data testing, which was a fascinating experience. As well as, Rose McAdoo, working in the Arctic and Antarctic, communicating scient and humane stories through desserts (she makes cakes on glaciers!). She was an artists in the Shaped by Ice exhibit and I was fortunate enough to meet her in Alaska in 2024 sharing a profound experience I had experiencing and hearing ancient stories through glacial sounds.

All of these experiences, people I have met, and relationships that had formed contributed to what was in store for my ice swimming future. It would just now be on hold for a while.

I took August off to play and do some scenic swimming, crewing for friends, and giving time back to myself to enjoy the water again. September, I officially started training again in preparation for my ice swim attempt. At this time, I had settled on Colorado as my location for the attempt. Denver was the site of my first ice mile back in 2020. I hadn’t seen Sarah or Cindy for many years and I thought with the good memories, good people, and mountain sun, it would be great to go back and do a longer distance swim attempt. I was also aiming for an early season swim, end of November-ish, so that if I didn’t make it or something went wrong I had the rest of the season to sneak one it.

Little did I know, this season would turn out to be anything but predicable, which is where the saga really begins….

Long story short, El Niño threw everyone West of the Rockies for a loop and Colorado waters never cooled enough to do an ice swim. For months, it was “almost there” and then something out of our control would happen, a surprising warm front, the dam opening and releasing warm water into the reservoir a few days before an anticipated attempt. I was travelling to Tahoe every 2-3 weeks to train to get used to the elevation (I am superstitious about swimming the water I’m doing an attempt in, which is why I never flew out to Denver).

About mid-November I had crew chosen, my go-bags packed, and was ready. I worked over the next few months with the Colorado crew getting temperature reads, booking tickets, cancelling tickets, so many “almost there” moments, but it just never froze. The Colorado crew also hadn’t seen anything like this before. By the time mid-February had come and the water still hadn’t dropped, I decided I needed to pull the plug and look elsewhere.

Tahoe isn’t stable enough to plan an ice swim as the water isn’t consistently cold enough. I had missed all the drops on the East Coast at this time. They were getting slammed with storm after storm while we were sitting in the mid-60s in February with some 70 degree days sprinkled in. I had scouted about 25 different swim areas here in Washington state and nothing turned up any viable results for cold water that was both consistent and safe enough to plan a swim. My swim folks in the Portland, Oregon, area where there is 99% chance of ice swimming resulting in cold water melt from the mountains down through the Columbia were also just missing that magic water temperature cut-off of 5C / 41F, required for an ice swim. Great Salt Lake, Utah, was too warm, and at that time Sitka, Alaska, was also too warm. I asked some friends who lived in Spokane, WA to see if they could go measure Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, as it was cold enough by the buoy and after a very irrational last minute 1-day flight out and back solely for the purpose of measuring temperature, and….. it was too warm.

I was soooo frustrated, getting tired of being cold, training, doing cold baths (I was up to 1hr 20min minutes at this point – thank you Fyre Sauna for hosting my training sessions), I was stress eating, stress shopping, stress everything. The crew felt it, I felt it, my coach felt it, my family felt it, and there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted to swim less and less, I stopped seeing my friends at the beach because one small comment about ice swimming, whether it be positive or negative, irritated me. I was dropping money left and right trying to get to cold water, traveling, training (don’t even ask about the credit card bill), and nothing was happening.

At this point, I really felt like it was over. It was now early March, I made one last scouting trip up into the mountains to measure Rattlesnake Lake in Snoqualmie, and it was SOOOO warm, I couldn’t believe it. The distance to medical is out of my safety comfort level, but I was considering it because I could feel myself getting desperate. But it was a no-go. My gut and heart sank and it was over. Then I got sick with the cold of all colds, the kind that put you out on the couch for 2 weeks. I was done. I had a previous conversation with my coach that if something didn’t come by end of March, I was pulling the plug entirely. All that work, all that planning, all that effort, and while I gained an immense about of knowledge studying and learning how weather and meteorological conditions affect water based on size, depth, contributing to wind, surface turbidity, etc, Mother Nature is something beyond my control. I had largely checked out this point and was biding my time until the end of March. It was just too warm, which was even confirmed in a local news story by Leah Pazetti, an Emmy Award-winning meteorologist and author, reporter and meteorologist at KING 5 in Seattle, “She competes in near-freezing water. But, she can’t find any in the Pacific Northwest”.

Then it happened, a late season, unexpected blizzard through the entire Cascades corridor. Otherwise knows as Divine Intervention.

I had just come off of being sick when the blizzard hit. I had had 2 “scenic” swims after being on the couch for 2.5 weeks and one “kinda sorta” swim that was thwarted by a sea lion tailing me uncomfortably close (let’s just say I could see his teeth up close). Based on everything I had learned and all the knowledge I had gained about weather patterns, I took a gamble and told crew I’m going out to Coeur d’Alene, get your go-bag ready.

When I got there, it was awful… just what I needed for the swim. The wind was gusting, snow was blowing, my mom had just flown in from her vacation to Hawaii to help support. We narrowly made it over the pass, which had been closed for 2 days for accidents and avalanche control, but we were there. We measured the temperature and it read 5.1C / 41.2 F…. queue silence, crying, screaming, you name it, the emotion was felt by my core and all the way to my coach and crew. Too warm again and was consistently too warm the 5 locations around the lake we measured. I had a feeling though and trusted the data that I had, it would work. It had to work. This was my last chance.

The night was dropping to -6.11C / 21F overnight. The next day would be too cold for swimming, but it may drop the temps. Two days from now is rain, which would melt the snow into the lake, further cooling it, making a Tuesday swim feasible. We had crew wait, I measured temperature the next morning and it was 4.8C / 40.64F, ice swim temperatures, but it was close and I had a feeling it wouldn’t hold until Tuesday. I made a call and asked crew to come out early.

I have great friends. I keep my crew circle small with people I know I can count on and trust, and with less than 24 hours notice, all the pieces fell into place. Medical just happened to work out by coincidence, my neighbor Brandon who is with the fire department, happened to be in Coeur d’Alene that week and was able to get me squared away with Coeur d’Alene Fire Department’s East Side division providing boat and medical support, my Medical Officer, Orion, from my ice mile qualifying swim was able to make it. I had the best crew support paddler and Witness, Susan, another support kayaker, my mom helping with recover, and my Lead Observer, Stacey. The house we rented had kayaks available and wow, was the owner Samantha the absolute best host ever! She made sure we had what we needed for crew headquarters, had the hook-up with local knowledge, and definitely felt like an informal part of the crew.

That evening my crew arrived, we went over course, safety plan, and we were set for a mid-day swim the day after…. Pending the temperatures would hold.

The next morning, we measured to confirm water temperature and it was perfect, reading around 4.5C / 40.1F. I notified the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department the swim would be at 1:00pm. It was go-time!

Since the swim had been moved up a full day, self-admittedly I was scrambling getting everything ready. There were two course options depending on the wind, and by the time we got there, the wind would be in our favor with low wind for the next 6 hours. Little did I know at the time, low wind would be the only good thing about the swim. I got ready, we made our final course adjustment, which with low wind, allowed us to do a shore parallel course (with bonus plane loop for fun) keeping things super close to shore and safe versus deeper lake loops. The lake drops quickly when it’s at a lower level in the winter due to dam control, which in this case is good because the depth requirement is enabled to be met closer to shore, increasing safety.

Despite the cold weather, I had easily managed to stay warm pre-swim, thanks to the amazing Red Equipment crew kit! After going through my usual pre-race check-list, I was ready, got in, and it went all downhill from there. I was cold, like really cold, and it never got better. My stroke never settled, my form was off, my stroke count was off, I couldn’t regulate my breathing. I felt like shit and that’s all there was too it. The first loop took so long and around the 400m mark my ears started ringing and I was already getting brain fog, something that doesn’t happen to me until around 1200m to just shy of the mile mark. My left upper thigh was on fire, felt like I was getting hit with a scalding hot pan, which was new for me. I made the turn and around the 600m mark, stopped and told my kayaker and crew I didn’t think I was going to make it. Nothing was wrong per say, but I didn’t feel right.

On the second loop, I started to not feel safe being so far away from the start. I asked to go back and do our planned “if things go awry” course, which cut the second loop in half and did 3 smaller loops closer to the swim start. I was talking a lot, which was slowing me down, but it was the only thing I could do to keep myself mentally engaged. I got colder, was complaining a lot more, doing significantly more breaststroke than normal trying to keep my facial and cranial nerves from getting to cold, which further slowed me down.

Then I got bored. Really bored. I thought my bonus plane loop would intrigue me and it didn’t. I was cold, bored, and didn’t think I could make it, but one thing I know about myself is I can suffer longer than most people I know. I trusted my support paddler and kayaker when they told me to keep going and I always have self-imposed safety precautions in place for immediate pull if I meet the threshold, which I didn’t. I was talking, I was remembering things, I was just cold and felt awful…. but, I don’t have to feel good, to perform well. At the 2.1km mark, I was checking in every 0.1 to 0.2km, it was painful to hear I was making such slow progress, and then just as quickly as I had wanted to quit, I hear my support paddler say I made 2.8km, my goal.

Then I started thinking about going further and hitting 3km, they could see me thinking, and I quickly remembered that it wasn’t my goal. I owe it to my crew to stop here, so I did. I stumbled out of the water 1hr 17min 59sec after I started, reclaiming the U.S. distance record and unofficially becoming the longest sufferer in the water. I heard people cheering and I had no idea where they came from, but I guess someone swimming in winter always draws curiosity, including when I see people swimming in winter.

Rewarming for me went as usual, so nothing remarkable to report there. There was an infamous curb I had to get over, which at the time seemed like I was climbing Mount Everest to get over it. After rewatching the video, it was a dramatic 2” step up, which has had me giggling ever since. On the drama and exaggeration in your mind hypothermia makes. I shivered it out with my Hawaiian Punch and the best thing about re-warming this time, is I had a woman with the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department with me who was studying hypothermia (at least in my hazy brain I think that’s what she said). It was a really cool (figuratively and literally) experience though because she got to see someone go through hypothermia in an expected and controlled environment and I got to ask her all my questions about what my body was experiencing, why XYZ was happening, and she was able to tell me. Probably the most educational and best hypothermic recovering experience I’ve ever had. If you’re reading this, thank you for broadening my knowledge. I love experiencing hypothermia with you!

This swim was one of if not the worst performances I’ve ever had. It was cold, rainy, thick overcast clouds, and a bitter wind that chilled the air and picked up at the end. Conditions were not right for a WR attempt and that was okay. I made my goal and to be honest, after all the stress of the year, I just wanted the opportunity to try. Wherever the cards fell at the end of the day, if I had the opportunity to try, I would accept the hand.

I contribute the success of swim to all the knowledge I gained through 5 months of false starts, scouting, training, learning about weather, researching lakes, data, upon data, upon data I’ve tracked, my crew, proper planning, but most of all that sprinkle of divine intervention. There was too much coincidence for thing to have fell in place the way they did and there’s no explanation otherwise than the understanding that you’ll get your swim when the time is right, and at the end of the day you’re not in control of when it will happen. You may think you are, but now I see that is not true. It truly is all a part of a plan that we cannot see.

The next morning, the originally planned last minute swim date, the crew and I went down to the lake to measure the temperature for giggles. It read 5.3C / 41.54F, too warm. The weather window after 5 months of tracking boiled down to 36 hours, the only 36 hours of opportunity all winter and we got it… like I said planning, education, data, plus divine intervention.

This was an extremely long blog, but needed to be written for historical purposes, so I could remember, so I could learn from my mistakes along with the things that went well, but to also pass along the knowledge to others. Hopefully you, as the reader, were able to take something away from this that will be useful in your life, whether in the ice or other pursuits.

I’m still on my quest for a WR attempt, but the distance, an ephemeral number on a list, is not worth the immense stress is not something I ever want to go through again. If I go for it, which is the plan, it will be an experience attempt, in a body of water, with the people I love, at a place I love, with the animals I love. Who knows if that day will ever come, but now that I know I’m not in control, I’m satisfied that it it’s meant to be it will happen.

For the time being, I am 100% satisfied knowing that after that swim, one of the worst performances I’ve ever had, I could suffer through and make it. Maybe was knowing I had really good friends and family as crew, that they had more faith in me than I knew I had. Maybe it was the hot tub and pizza I knew was on the menu at the end. Either way, we did it and even through I swore I would never do this again in the immediate shivery aftermath of the swim…. those who know and who have been there, knew that was just the hypothermia talking. Hypothermia can be fun, and it’s even better with friends.

Love,

Melissa