My plan was to have the most epic, historic and mind-blowing swims to close out 2015 and welcome 2016. My wee family rented a tiny railcar cottage that was next door to an indoor pool. A HUGE indoor pool. (And it was in Utopia, Ontario...clearly a sign of brilliance ahead, right?!)

I had grand visions of swimming every time the baby went down for a nap and sneaking out of the railcar after a midnight toast and going for a first-hour-of-2016 dip. I dreamt of doing laps on laps on laps, then rushing into the railcar for hot chocolate and whisky by the fire.

Sadly, my grand visions weren’t quite realized. 

The pool was a lot smaller than the pictures indicated (why are pools always SO much bigger in photos?!?) — just five strokes from one side to the other. Not ideal, but not a deal breaker.

The water was eerily murky (it was a natural pool, cleaned by “microhero microbes” that were squirted into the water in a molasses-y concoction), but I’ve been swimming in E. Coli ladened Lake Ontario, so that couldn’t stop me…

The deal breaker was that the pool was cold. So, so very cold. Granted, I am a wimp when it comes to getting into cold water, but usually once I get swimming, I can’t stop. But this water was so cold, I couldn’t.

Ten lengths, maybe. Fifty strokes was all I could manage.

And so, even though I remembered my underpants (which really needs to be my New Year’s resolution), my final swim of 2015 wasn’t the epic, historic, mind-blowing swim I hoped it would be and my first swim of 2016 took place at the local community pool -- my standard, 30-minutes front crawl, 10-minutes flutter kick, 15-minutes choose-your-own-adventure in the fast lane.

But I have not given up on finding my swimming utopia -- 2016 is going to be full of swimming adventures, I just know it.