As you reach for your hot chocolate and snuggle on the couch this afternoon, think of two Canberra teenagers doing laps of the outdoor, unheated Phillip swimming pool to achieve their goals. That's right. Swimming. Outside. In Canberra. In winter. In unheated water.
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One is building up his strength for a return to open water swimming after having a life-threatening brain cyst removed; the other is training for upcoming long-haul swims around Manhattan Island in New York and also across the Catalina Channel off the coast of Los Angeles.
The Phillip pool is closed for winter but 16-year-old Joe Pascall and 19-year-old Ben Freeman have special permission to swim there every afternoon - whether it's raining, whether it's dark, whether the air temperature is approaching freezing.
"We train all year," their jovial coach, Les Barclay, said. "The only time we don't train is when there's lightning in the area."
One Friday in early June, they dove into water that was 14 degrees celsius. That doesn't sound too cold in terms of air temperature. When it comes to water temperature, it's frigid.
"You just jump in and go and after about five minutes, your body adapts," Ben said, cheerily.
"After a while, your hands and feet do go pretty cold. It's refreshing."
They usually do five or six kilometres over two hours. Most afternoons of the week.
So what does Ben do afterwards? Surely a nice hot shower? Nope.
"I put on a big jacket and try to warm up naturally," he said.
Joe, who is looking to a return to national-level open-water swimming after his surgery in February last year, is similarly resilient.
"For the first 100 [metres] it's quite, not so much painful - it makes you want to go faster for the duration and then it gets easier," he said.
Joe does have a shower at the pool after his swim and "shivers a lot afterwards".
It's a remarkable comeback for the teenager who's very rare pineal gland cyst was removed by famed neurologist Dr Charlie Teo in high-risk surgery where the alternative was he "might not wake up one day". He was swimming nationals at the age of 14 before the surgery; he hopes to qualify again early next year.
"He's driven," dad Steve said. "He knows what he wants to do."
Ben, who is studying commerce and business administration at the Australian National University, in 2015 swam the English Channel, covering the 34 kilometres in nine hours and nine minutes. The water temperature then was about 17 degrees.
The Red Hill teenager is off soon to the United States to complete the 20 Bridges Manhattan Island swim (46km) on June 24 and 33km Catalina Channel swim off the coast of Los Angeles, on July 12.
If he finishes those, he's expected to be the 143rd person in the world and 15th Australian to be able to boast of achieving the triple crown of open water swimming: The English Channel, Manhattan Island and the Catalina Channel.
He expects the water in the US to also be around 17 degrees, which should be a breeze compared to what he has been training in in Canberra.
"You always train for the worst and hope for the best," he said.
And Ben reckons the bigger threat for the Manhattan swim, negotiating the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers, will be the rubbish.
"I've had my hepatitis shot," he said, with a laugh.
