65 swimmers from 13 countries responded our most recent poll.  Distribution by country:

US: 25 responses
Spain: 16
UK: 9
Ireland: 4
Australia: 3
Israel, New Zealand, Gibraltar, Portugal, Switzerland, Ukraine, Estonia, Mexico: 1

1. What is the coldest water temperature that you have swum at least for 1 hour (without a wetsuit)?

When putting together the multiple choice options, I spent some time thinking about what should be the coldest temperature option and ended up putting 9C. I thought that swimming more than 1 hour in temps of 8C or below was something within the reach of maybe a handful of swimmers. Based on the responses and feedback from well-known cold-water swimmers, maybe I should have gone down to 5C (this was Henri Kaarma’s response via Facebook). Or at least phrased it as “9C or below”.

With this consideration, here are the results of the poll:

Here again, consistent with our Cold Water poll last year, we see that there is a strong relationship between the country’s swimmer and his/her relationship with cold water swimming. Following is the average response to the coldest one-hour swim for different countries:

Spain: 17.7ºC (63.8ºF)
US: 15ºC (59ºF)
UK: 12ºC (53.6ºF)
Ireland: 10.5ºC (50.9ºF)

2. Have you peed in the pool in at least one of your last 10 pool workouts?

I read recently that 20% of Americans admit to peeing in the pool. It seemed low to me, so I included this question in this poll, and the results are revealing.

Here again, a geographic breakdown provides some interesting insights into pool continental habits. By country:

Categories: Cold Water, Open Water, Polls & Surveys