When you enter freezing cold water, your body can react with shock, you might gasp

for air and voluntarily, or even begin hyperventilating.

Your muscles can spasm, and your blood vessels can constrict.

Despite the discomfort, Melissa Kegler finds beauty, swimming, and cold water.

I was way offshore doing my training swim, and I stopped to watch sunrise over the mountain.

And you know the water is 52 degrees, whatever it is it's cold.

And I remember thinking as the sun was coming up over the mountains and all the snow was

turning pink.

If I was any thinner, I would not be able to float here and be comfortable watching the

sunrise in the middle of the ocean in the 52 degree water.

It took Melissa years to accept and appreciate her body, but these days she's grateful for it.

Thanks to years of training and cold exposure, she can handle long swims in bitter temperatures.

Her body has carried her across some pretty remarkable distances.

She swam 20 and a half miles across the English channel, and 28 and a half miles

around the island of Manhattan. She even set a record for the ice mile.

Swimming just over two kilometers in 39 degree water.

I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI co-op studios production.

Melissa is based in Seattle, where the Puget Sound hovers around 50 degrees Fahrenheit

much of the year. Even though it's frigid, Melissa spends many of her mornings at Alkai Beach,

slowly waiting into the gentle waves. Alkai is her training ground for both ice swims,

which take place in water under 41 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as marathon swims,

which is anything over 10 kilometers. It's also where she finds community.

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