“Ice swimming is my reset button”: Cath Pendleton on breaking records in Antarctica
In February 2020, Cath Pendleton became the first woman to swim a mile in the Antarctic Circle. We caught up with the Welsh swimmer about swimming in zero-degree waters, dodging killer whales – and why she sits in a freezer full of ice to train.
It’s a chilly winter’s day in London as I sit at my desk to call Cath Pendleton. A brisk walk outside on my lunch break is enough to have me huddled up next to the radiator with a cup of tea. Then I remember who I’m about to speak to: a record-breaking ice swimmer who has conquered the coldest waters on the planet, all without a wetsuit.
But Cath, 49, is the first to admit it takes a certain kind of person to swim in these conditions. “I think it’s down to two things: mindset and acclimatisation” she says. Growing up in the village of Sennybridge, at the edge of the Brecon Beacons, she enjoyed swimming in local rivers as a child. “Maybe my body remembered how to cope with the cold, from all those years of outdoor swimming.”
It wasn’t until after having her own children – Danielle, 23, and Bethan, 19 – that she returned to the sport. Around 10 years ago, she began competing in triathlons, which led her back to outdoor swimming and then, eventually, ice swimming.
There’s a big difference between the two. Open water swimming (or wild swimming) can take place in any outdoor body of water that isn’t a pool, and participants usually wear wetsuits. Meanwhile, for ice swimming, the water temperature must be below 5°C (41°F) and you can only wear a swimsuit, hat and goggles, according to the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA). In other words, it's a lot more hardcore.
It’s enough to make most of us turn blue at the lips just thinking about it. But in January 2016, after swimming her first Ice Mile – a mile-long (1.6km) swimming event that takes place in sub-5°C (41°F) water – Cath was totally hooked. Just over four years later, she’d swam in freezing Antarctic waters and set a Guinness World Record for the most southerly Ice Swim (1km+) by a woman.
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The allure of the cold
Cath began training with a triathlon club in 2011, yet initially all the swimming events were pool-based. “Then I bought a wetsuit and started doing open water swimming – I just really loved it.”
She signed up for triathlons that involved outdoor swimming, as well as some 5km (3 mile) and 10km (6 mile) wild swimming events. Entering ice-cold waters came along a little later. “I’d hurt my back and it was coming to the end of the triathlon season. I was wondering what to do next.”
When she saw a photograph in a magazine of swimmers standing by Lake Windermere in nothing but swimming costumes, she thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s proper bonkers! I wonder if I could do something like that?”
So Cath and a friend decided to give it a go. They headed to a local river, which was around 12°C (53.6°F), managing to swim for around eight minutes without wetsuits. “We were still frozen afterwards.” She stresses that this wasn’t the safest way into the sport, advising first timers: “Find an instructor, don’t go alone and make sure you get proper knowledge before you try it.”
Despite a wobbly first attempt, Cath was still lured in by ice-cold waters. After giving it another go, she said, “I loved it.” She made a few ice swimming friends online, via social media. Then she decided to sign up for an Ice Mile.
Signing up to swim Antarctica
Ice swimming quickly became addictive. After taking part in her first Ice Mile in 2016, Cath swam a 1.5km (0.93 mile) race in Poland at 1.5°C (34.7°F), where she met Irish open water swimmer Ger Kennedy who was running the Antarctica 2020 International Swim expedition.
Hui Xu/Shutterstock
It’s Ger Kennedy, along with American open water swimmer Jaimie Monahan, who Cath cites as her biggest inspiration in signing up to swim in Antarctica.
“I saw a video of Jaimie swimming her Ice Mile in Antarctica. It was so flat and calm and she's got a beautiful stroke. And then I saw she had penguins jumping into the water behind her! I was like: oh my gosh, I want to go swim in Antarctica.”
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Unusual training regime
So just how did Cath train for this once-in-a-lifetime event? Besides the obvious – swimming in eye-wateringly cold waters – she turned to some pretty unorthodox methods. Namely, installing a giant chest freezer in a shed in her back garden.
“Ger [Kennedy] said to me, why don’t you get a freezer like the Australian swimmers do?” She admits he was “probably being tongue-in-cheek.” But before she knew it, she was picking up a chest freezer she’d bought on Facebook Marketplace, installing it in a shed in her back garden and filling it with ice-cold water.
Cath acclimatising to the cold by getting into a freezer full of ice (Image: James Pontin)
There is some method behind the madness. Cath tells me that acclimatising to the cold is necessary to prevent cold shock response – where the body immediately senses the cold on entering the water, causing uncontrollable fast breathing, plus heightened blood pressure and heart rate.
Deadly marine life
If the freezing temperatures weren’t enough to discourage most people from swimming in the Antarctic, the thought of swimming anywhere near orcas, also known as killer whales, would be.
“It’s funny,” Cath recalls. “Before I went to Antarctica, I had been much more worried about leopard seals. I hadn’t even thought about orcas.” But just before she was supposed to swim, “somebody shouted: “ORCAS!” And everybody rushed to the other side of the boat.”
Cath in Antarctica (Image: James Pontin)
“One of the guys on the trip said, 'Cath, are you coming to see them?', and I said, 'I don't think so!'” She admits if she had, she may have been too afraid to go in.
“While I was swimming, something – maybe a piece of moss – floated past me and I realised how clear the water was. And I thought, what if something comes up? Then I thought: Cath, just focus on kicking your legs.”
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Finding peace at zero degrees
It’s precisely the immense cold that forces Cath to go into this tunnel-vision-like state of focus. “It’s meditative,” she muses. “That’s the thing with winter swimming. When it's that cold it really does switch your brain off. You've just got to concentrate on getting it done.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, regular wild swimming just doesn’t give her as much of a thrill. “Even when the water’s warmer and I go swimming outdoors in the summer, I end up just mucking about.”
Nor does swimming in a pool. “It would be like if you're a marathon runner and you love running outdoors, and then suddenly you have to go to the gym and run on a treadmill. Swimming in a pool is like that for me.”
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What’s next?
You could be forgiven for thinking that after ticking Antarctica off her list, Cath was ready to throw in the towel. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Now she’s set her sights on swimming in the Arctic Polar Circle, as well as taking on the Ice Sevens challenge: completing an Ice Mile in each of the seven continents on Earth.
For now, though, it’ll be a case of working on her fitness and acclimatisation. “I lost a lot of that last winter” – due to Wales’ lockdown, when outdoor swimming wasn’t allowed – “and it took me a while to get back into it. I’m still nowhere near where I was when I went to Antarctica.”
But it’s clear that ice swimming will always be a part of her life. “It wasn't until I had to stop that I realised how much I missed it. It was crazy. I call it my reset button."
Cath's Antarctica 2020 expedition appeared on BBC documentary The Methyr Mermaid and was sponsored by Young's Seafood and Source Insurance. Cath is currently looking for sponsorhip for upcoming expeditions, you can find out more about her future swimming adventures via her website.You can find out more about ice swimming via the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA).
Lead image: James Pontin
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