Melissa Kegler is an elite open-water swimmer who specializes in cold water, long distance swims. She recently broke the U.S. national distance record for IISA’s Ice Mile event. Her goal goes beyond excelling in this extreme sport. Melissa is committed to fostering an inclusive community focusing on body positivity and self-love.
Melissa Kegler is an elite open-water swimmer who specializes in cold water, long distance swims. She recently broke the U.S. national distance record for IISA’s Ice Mile event. Her goal goes beyond excelling in this extreme sport. Melissa is committed to fostering an inclusive community focusing on body positivity and self-love.
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Shelby Stanger:
When you enter freezing cold water, your body can react with shock. You might gasp for air involuntarily or even begin hyperventilating. Your muscles can spasm and your blood vessels constrict. Despite the discomfort, Melissa Kegler finds beauty swimming in cold water.
Melissa Kegler:
I was way offshore doing my training swim and I stopped to watch sunrise over the mountain. And the water's 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 52-degree water."
Shelby Stanger:
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's swum 20 1/2 miles across the English Channel and 28 1/2 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's 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 Alki Beach, slowly waiting into the gentle waves. Alki 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. Okay, let's start it with the basics. How do you define cold water?
Melissa Kegler:
So, cold water in the swimming world is really anything below 70. Once you get below 50, it's cold, cold. But you can really get hypothermia in any body of water that's lower than your body temperature. So Seattle, the warmest I would say the water really gets here in the ocean during the summer on the surface layer is probably 60 degrees. So that's why it's the ideal training grounds for pretty much any cold water swim. Usually in the summer, it's about 55, 58 I would say on a good day, and then the water probably gets down to about 45-ish in the wintertime. So it's not a big temperature swing, but it's cold all the time.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. And what is ice swimming?
Melissa Kegler:
Ice swimming for normal people is really just anything in cold water. So, it doesn't necessarily have to be an ice, it can be an ice, but really I would say for normal, regular swimmers, anything that's really cold. And when I say really cold, that subjective, but in the 40s in general.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. And you do this because you love it?
Melissa Kegler:
Yes. I would say love it after the fact when I'm happy. I think the misnomer for a lot of cold water swimmers and ice swimmers is that, "It must not feel cold to you." It is cold every single time. And I would challenge any cold water swimmer. I secretly think they're lying if they say it's not cold because it's cold every single time. There's no way it can't be. But afterwards, once you kind of get that adrenaline rush and the excitement of finishing the ice swim, then it's fun.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm really curious, why ice, why the cold water? What is so alluring about that versus you could have just kept going and doing these long marathon swims, but you're really attracted to cold water?
Melissa Kegler:
So I think for me, in the same way that at the end of the day the ocean controls your swim and decides the fate for you, for me, I think the allure of the really cold water is that same type of control. But you have to really know yourself and know your body because when you're swimming for a long distance, you can't continually swim, because the physiology of your body is going to take over. At some point in time, you're going to get hypothermia and you're going to eventually die if you keep going. There is a limit that no human can withstand. So, to have the self-control, to know yourself intimately enough to stop and say, "This is it. This is at my limit. This is what the water and my body is telling me is enough," and to listen to that I think is the allure for me.
Shelby Stanger:
Melissa was almost 30 when she discovered open water swimming. Her family entered a relay triathlon in Florida. And Melissa, who was a swimmer in high school, decided to take on the half mile portion of the event. She was a little intimidated by being the only swimmer there who wasn't wearing a wetsuit. But that's when she discovered she really liked swimming in the open water. She started participating in longer organized swims and decided to take swim lessons. A couple of years later, Melissa moved to Seattle for work where a fellow swimmer invited her to Alki Beach and introduced her to the notorious Alki swimmers. The water may have been cold, but the swim club was warm and welcoming in a way that Melissa didn't expect.
Every open water swimming group I've ever met has been full of these incredible overachieving, very diverse, bright, determined, fun loving, badass people. I'm guessing your crew is no different. Tell me about this community and how you fell in love with them.
Melissa Kegler:
The swim group at Alki Beach when I first joined was really small. But I remember the first day I went to Alki. It was a beautiful sunny day and there's a big hill on a Admiral Street. It's the last big hill towards the beach. And I went over this hill, the sun was shining, the Olympic mountains were in the background and you see this body of water. And it's just, for somebody who's never seen the mountains before, coming from Michigan and the East Coast, to see the mountains and the sun and the water like that, it was one of those things you just knew that this is a special place. And I got to the beach and the water was the coldest water I've ever felt in my entire life. It was absolutely freezing. But it was something, I don't know how to describe it, it's just one of those things, you hate it but you love it at the same time. I don't know, it was just wonderful.
Shelby Stanger:
It hurts so good.
Melissa Kegler:
Yes. And the community was, they were just so positive. They didn't care if you had a wetsuit on, they didn't care if you had a regular swimsuit on. It was just kind of one of those come as you are type places. There's people of all different ages, races, professions, beliefs, just this huge diverse group of people that is grown over the past several years. And we just love spending time with each other. It's also been a group and a place where I've been able to explore myself and explore my body as I've changed in size over the last several years, and really become comfortable in my own skin and to be in a place now where I am the heaviest I've ever been in my life. But to be starting into this new decade of my 40s, being the heaviest I've ever been, I have never been happier with who I am physically and where I'm going.
Shelby Stanger:
I mean, your body has taken you to records through ice.
Melissa Kegler:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
Your body is awesome. I really like that you are talking about using your body that you have to do these wonderful things and accepting it and loving it. And I'm just curious to kind of hear about your journey and sort of where you're at with it, and what you want others to know.
Melissa Kegler:
Yes. The body positivity thing is a great concept. It's been a source of a lot of pain and also joy in the journey. When I was in high school, I was very, very thin. But you know what? It allowed me to achieve my athletic goals in high school. And I think as a lot of adults and specifically a lot of females can relate, as you get older, things change, the weight goes on. And it is what it is. You get sucked into diet fads. I have that dress in my closet that's four sizes too small that I swore I was going to get into at the end of last year.
And I think there's a lot of, again, especially for females, but it can happen to men as well, there's a lot of pressure to look a certain way based on whether it's social media or just weird comments from people. But how that really played into swimming is I started in a wetsuit, went into one piece, and I was probably 50 pounds lighter at that point in time, and I was still terrified to take off my T-shirt. Me and two other girls made a pact that we were going to swim in a two piece. And it took me probably 30 minutes to take off my shirt to "reveal myself" on the beach in March in Seattle.
Now, who's on the beach in March in Seattle? Nobody. I realized, I love how I felt in the water in the two piece. And gradually over time, I found the smaller the bikini got, the better I felt in the water. And I realized I just don't really care anymore because my body is getting bigger, the swimsuits are getting smaller, I'm becoming more comfortable. And then there's this moment I remember clear as day, it was really early in the morning and I was out at Alki and I was way offshore doing my training swim and I stopped to watch sunrise over the mountain, the water's 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 52-degree water."
It was such a turning point in my relationship with myself and my body just thinking, "Why am I worried about this?" Of course, visually, I do want to get into the pair of jeans that's a couple sizes smaller. But if I do that, then I might not be able to watch the sunrise like this and I might not be able to be comfortable swimming in the English Channel. And maybe my organs are going to shut down during ice swimming. There's all these what ifs that my body size, if it changes, it could affect my goals and I'm not willing to do that because I'm not willing to risk my enjoyment.
Shelby Stanger:
Melissa has an incredible resume when it comes to swimming. Between 2016 and 2018, she swam across the Catalina Channel, the English Channel, and around the island of Manhattan. These three swims are known as the Triple Crown in the world of open water swimming. They're all between 30 and 45 kilometers. Just swimming one mile is impressive, imagine swimming over 20. Melissa didn't get to this point overnight. It took hours of training and completing a handful of shorter swims. So, you had this idea to do the English Channel. How did you prepare for that?
Melissa Kegler:
In preparation for the English Channel, I did the Alcatraz swim because I thought that's a real cold water swim. I was in a wetsuit at the time because I started at Alki in a full sleeved wetsuit because, I mean it's cold, I thought that's what I needed to wear. And I remember thinking Alcatraz is going to be really cold. And I remember jumping off that boat and just having that instant body freeze shock of the cold water and thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm never going to be able to do this."
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So why did you decide to enter the Triple Crown?
Melissa Kegler:
When I was training for English Channel, one of my mentors said, "You should do Catalina as a practice because it's about the same distance, the water's warmer, it's local here in the US so just a quick plane hop down to California. Just go do it. It'll be a good practice for England." So I said, "Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That sounds like a good idea." And then, a little while after he said, "You know if you're going to do two, you might as well do three and get this Triple Crown designation."
Shelby Stanger:
How many hours a day would you train to prepare, because you'd swam a mile?
Melissa Kegler:
Yes. So, I have a lifelong shoulder injury in my right shoulder so I was a little hesitant about swimming longer distances. So I did do a practice swim of, I think it was seven miles. If I can make it through the seven-mile swim in Wisconsin I think it was, if I can make it through that without shoulder pain, then I can probably do Catalina, English Channel, and Manhattan. And it was kind of one of those, "Oh, that's great. I don't have any shoulder pain. That means I can continue." But at the same time I thought, "Oh crap, I don't have any shoulder pain. That means I have to continue because I said I would." Because I think at some point in time when you have a big lofty goal, you think, "Maybe I'm really not meant for it. Maybe it really is just something crazy I'm thinking about."
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. It sounds like you were waiting for an excuse to appear. And when it didn't, you're like, "Well, I guess I'm going for it."
Melissa Kegler:
Yes, yes, that was exactly it. I was waiting for a blocker to give myself an excuse that I couldn't do it. And it just never came so kept trudging on.
Shelby Stanger:
What happens in your mind when you're swimming these distances? Catalina was the first big one you did. How did you keep going when you wanted to stop? I mean, Catalina's 20.1 miles. You'd done seven at this point.
Melissa Kegler:
Yes. So for me, positivity hasn't always worked. I'm a very kind of negative person in my head when I swim. But for me it works. So I say, "I can't do it. I hate this, I'm quitting. This is stupid. I'm in pain, I don't like it, I want to get out." And then, when I finally verbalize it to somebody, I think, "Oh my gosh, I just let them in on my secret. Well, I can't actually quit now because I don't want to be a failure to them." So, it's almost that kind of reverse psychology. And then the other thing that really gets me through is when I'm feeling really, really bad and I'm really hurting, I always return to the water, to the ocean and ask it for help.
And usually I end up making a promise because I'm a big person on not breaking promises. For example, in Catalina, I was having a really hard time about four miles to the finish, but I told the ocean if it just gave me something, some sort of animal, some sort of exciting thing to look at, I promise I'll finish no matter what. And no kidding, less than five minutes later, the super pod of dolphins came. There were three adults and a baby that were swimming belly up under me. And it was the same thing. I was so excited to see it. Then I thought, "Ugh, now I have to finish because I promised that I would finish if the ocean gave me an animal, and now it did, so I have to finish to the end."
Shelby Stanger:
But before you even get into the water, I've heard you on a video say, "I love you." Talk to me about that.
Melissa Kegler:
So one of the big things, regardless of whether it's a practice swim or an actual event, every time I go into the water, I always make sure I tell it, "I love you. Be kind to me. I want to be kind to you today. I appreciate you. Please be kind and I promise I'll give back." It's one of those things where the ocean always wins. Even if you finish a swim successfully, that doesn't mean the ocean didn't win, because the ocean is going to throw you something during the swim. Whether it's a blast of chili water or it's the rogue wave that you didn't expect, or it's an animal that pops up at the inopportune moment, the ocean always gives you something that throws you off. So for me, it's really important to just say almost like a little prayer or words of kindness or something to make it understand that, "I'm not here to fight you today. I'm not here to swim against you. I'm here to allow you to give me the best path to completion."
Shelby Stanger:
Swimming offers Melissa so much, a way to move her body that feels good, a close-knit community of swimmers, and a deep connection to nature. When we come back, Melissa talks all about ice swimming, how she prepares for the Ice Mile event and what happens to her body when she gets out of the freezing cold water. Plus, she tells me about some of her most memorable swims.
In 2022, open water swimmer Melissa Kegler set a new American distance record for an event called the Ice Mile. The Ice Mile is regulated by the International Ice Swimming Association, the IISA for short. And there are plenty of regulations for a swim to officially count. It has to take place outdoors and the water can't be warmer than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Swimmers aren't allowed to wear wetsuits, just a standard swimsuit, and nothing on their heads other than a swim cap and goggles.
On a January day in a small lake outside of Seattle, Melissa swam 1.4 miles in 39.2 degree water. She completed the swim in 51 minutes and 26 seconds. As someone who personally only tolerates cold water in very small increments, I cannot imagine spending almost an hour in just above freezing water. Melissa may not always love the cold water when she's in it, but over the years, she's learned how to prepare herself and thrive in these frigid swims.
You recently broke the record for the Ice Mile. How did you prepare mentally for the cold before you even got to the water? What do you do before getting in?
Melissa Kegler:
So for me, what works best is I make myself as hot as I can. And when I say as hot as I can, like the point where you're sweating almost inside your clothes and you get that sick, nauseous feeling in your stomach. For me, that really works because the water almost feels like a relief. I make sure I have a good amount of food ahead of time. And then honestly, I'm terrified before the swims. I mean, before the Ice Mile, because it was my first one in 2020, I had no clue what I was doing. I just thought, "What do I do? I mean, I just go in and swim?"
And I don't know how to describe it. Of course, that's what you're doing but at the same time I kept thinking, "There's got to be something else to it." But that's really all that you're doing, is you're just swimming until you're done. But that's really all I think about. I'm definitely not super confident when I'm going into it because there's just so much unknown and especially when I did the Ice 2.2K for the distance record. It hadn't been done before so you don't have anything to compare it to. So you go into it and you just kind of cross your fingers and hope you prepared enough, and whatever the outcome is, it ends up being.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, it wouldn't be a wild idea if it wasn't wild. So there is a lot of this surrendering control to the absolute unknown, which is scary. Okay, so you're hot, you dive in, and then it's just one stroke over the next stroke, over the next stroke until you get to the end. I've talked to Diana Nyad, I've talked to lots of long distance swimmers, some sing, some have mantras. What do you say to yourself to get to the other side?
Melissa Kegler:
So for me, I count to three. It's my stroke count, so one, two, three, and then I breathe. About 80% of all my swims is counting to three in breathing. And it's just that repetitive, almost meditative nature. Because when you aren't thinking about a lot of stuff, it allows you to just focus on those three numbers and your breath, but it also allows you to focus on how your hands are feeling, how your feet are feeling, how internally you're feeling because you don't have all these different thoughts.
Shelby Stanger:
What happens when it gets really cold though? How do you know the difference between getting hypothermic and being able to finish?
Melissa Kegler:
First of all, every cold water swimmer does go into hypothermia, whether it's mild hypothermia, moderate, or severe. Every cold water swimmer, if they start having shivers as a result of being in the cold, technically, they're in some sort of hypothermic state. We just know how to deal with whatever hypothermic state we're in. And then the swimmers that go into ice swimming or longer marathon swimming in cold water, that's when you'll get to experience it, those deeper states of hypothermia.
And I think every single swimmer, whether they admit it or not, that is in those more, I would say advanced stages of competition, has experienced hypothermia, has made a mistake. And that's something also that's not really talked about in the marathon and cold water swimming community. People view hypothermic incidents as an embarrassment sometimes. And it's not an embarrassment, it's not a mistake, it's not a failure. It's just how your body reacted to the cold on that particular day. I think really how you know the difference is you continually test your body. You start to recognize the signs of when you're in a hypothermic state that you can get out of which wouldn't be necessarily a worry or you're in a hypothermic state which you're going to need assistance.
But you just recognize the signs. So, if somebody is having difficulty mentally comprehending things, that would be a sign. For normal swimmers, when they're getting out of the water, if it's too cold, if they're wobbling, they're slurring their speech, they're overly excited or they feel warm, that actually is a sign of hypothermia too. Because when you do go through hypothermia, the first feeling is the feeling of warmth. And for me, I know when I'm normally swimming, if I'm starting to feel warm while I'm swimming, that's a sign for me to get back to the shore and get out right away too.
Shelby Stanger:
This is a really risky sport. I don't think I realized how risky it was. And often, I mean, I know even in ice baths there's this thing called the afterdrop.
Melissa Kegler:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
Can you explain to us what that is and sort of what happens when you finish and how you stay warm?
Melissa Kegler:
Sure. So the afterdrop happens when you get out of the water, you're trying to rewarm because how the body protects its internal organs is it shuts off or reduces blood flow to the extremities. And so, when you get out and you're rewarming, the blood vessels open again or they get bigger to allow blood flow to get to your fingers, for example. But what that also does is you have all this cold built up on your hands, the blood now goes into your hands, it pulls all that cold and it pulls it back to the heart.
So after you get out, the circulation of your blood actually continues to drop your body temperature. And so, people end up getting colder usually within about five minutes after getting out of the water. And that's what they typically call the afterdrop. And that's why it doesn't look as extreme as say climbing. Because with climbing, if you're on a mountain, there's the visual viewpoint of imminent death. They fall and that's kind of it, we're swimming, you're not falling, you're not necessarily going under, although it does happen, but all the danger is really after you're out of the water and you're getting warm and that afterdrop continues, and that's where a lot of the problems occur.
So typically, when you're done, you have a medical doctor with you that monitors your vitals and really takes a look at everything from heartbeat, to pupil dilation, to the amount of shivering you're doing. They're constantly checking you verbally to really gauge is mental and cognitive function impaired. Throughout that period, you're warming yourself externally through a heated room, blankets, and then also internally through the ingestion of room temperature to slightly warm liquids, and foods, and specifically sugar to kind of jumpstart your system with that sugar rush too.
Shelby Stanger:
How has swimming changed your life?
Melissa Kegler:
I mean, it's changed everything. It's changed obviously my relationship with myself, it's changed the relationship with the water and how I view nature and how I view spirituality. It's changed how I view work and the principles of why I go to work every day. It's changed my relationship. My current partner, Glenn, I met him through swimming. And that was a big deal because when I was training for my marathon swims, I was very adamant about, "I'm not dating. I'm not letting any guy disrupt what I want."
Shelby Stanger:
I love that you two met through swimming. Okay, so do you have any good swim stories over the years?
Melissa Kegler:
My absolute favorite animal encounters are seals, in general. And I have the seal Georgie off of Alki Beach. You can actually figure out which seals or which if you get close enough to him and are able to recognize his spots on the seals. So Georgie is one of my seals. And he, over the summertime, if I'm doing my long training, will swim with me for up to three hours on my training swims. So, it's really fun to just have company and a company in the form of a seal swimming with you, especially for that long.
And then probably my most memorable swim was the Catalina Channel. It was the first time I saw bioluminescence. There's no moon, it was a new moon night and every single hand stroke in the water that you took, you just saw these bright neon green bubbles. You put your hand and you do a stroke, you see these bright green neon bubbles. And then I took a breath and saw a shooting star. And it was just one of those magical moments where everything around you is pitch black but there's these glowing things in the sky, in the water, and you just kind of realize that at that moment, at that place in time, that is 100% exactly where you're meant to be.
Shelby Stanger:
Like any good extreme sport, cold water swimming takes mental and physical training, some serious guts, and perseverance. Melissa has continuously been rewarded for her hard work. She set records, made friends with seals, and she gets to experience parts of nature that not everyone does. Most of all, cold water swimming has led her to accept and love her body. Melissa Kegler, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was so interesting to talk with you, to hear how magical cold water can be. If you want to follow Melissa's swims, check her out on Instagram @melissakegler. That's M-E-L-I-S-S-A-K-E-G-L-E-R. He can also head to her website, melissakegler.com.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. And Annie recently took her two and a half year old son on his first hike in the Columbia River Gorge where he walked the entire time. It's so exciting. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber and our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we appreciate when you follow the show, when you rate it, and when you review it wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.