The Ice Man is here.

Open water swimming leads to self-discovery for lifelong athlete looking for a competitive connection
By ALAN KIRSCH © 2023

TOM…

Having ice water in one’s veins is a long-time saying for those who can compete and achieve with a cool disposition without letting anything rattle them.

However, for one Thomas Hale, of Laguna, California, it could also mean a bit of his actual DNA makeup as he has continued on a journey that is quite “chill” while also being remarkable.
Hale, 53, has endeavored to become an avid open water ice swimmer over the past decade-plus and despite experience in the water – having played water polo in college and also entertaining a number of scuba diving outings over the years – his actual swimming expertise was limited when he hit the ice and open lanes of H2O.

Was all this a byproduct of mid-life crisis or was it just a man with a drive to compete and connect through it?

“I am just glad I found it, it was great timing,” Hale said. “It’s cold, it hurts and it will kill you and it’s the most rewarding activity in the world for me. I absolutely love it and the people are amazing.

“I mean, you have every element of your body is pushing against you to not do it. The difference between like, cross country running and swimming is you can stop running. You can’t stop swimming.”

Open water swimming is a discipline which takes place in outdoor bodies of water such as open oceans, lakes, and rivers. Competitive open water swimming is governed by the International Swimming Federation (FINA), except when it is part of triathlon-type events, which are governed by World Triathlon, according to numerous sources.

“One stroke at a time. You go through every emotion – You are happy. You are sad. You are everything,” Hale said. “You go out for an hour, then two hours then you’d have a four-hour day or a five-hour day, and you just keep swimming. It’s about repetition.

“It’s just about deciding if you are going to go out and do it and start putting your action behind it – it just doesn’t happen.”

Where did this come from?

Hale grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and was the typical precocious athlete, competing in baseball, football, wrestling and pole vault to name a few.

Then came a group of young men Hale teamed with in the mid-1980s that turned around their fortunes on the gridiron and ultimately reengineered Hale’s athletic wiring just a bit.

“It was a definition of life and about camaraderie,” Hale said. “My freshman year my football team went (winless) and went 0-7-1. Then we went undefeated our sophomore year and with the same team. It instilled that teamwork and instilled that personal drive. The coaching was the same and we gelled as a team. And that was really cool, because you got to experience the trials as a team. It really wasn’t the winning, it was everything that went in before the win. It was that quintessential story and we were just fortunate enough to live it. It made a huge impact. We practiced after practice. We did extra. We wanted to do more. It wasn’t about the ability to finish. It was about doing it right, doing it the best.

“There was a lot of times, even though even though it was trivial on a large stage, it was everything. We almost lost some games – we had to push through, and that’s where it happens. That’s the magic. It’s the same magic that you have to pull out every week, every day. It was an amazing time.”

Hale attended the University of Arizona and played rugby and water polo before heading to Arizona State University to finish off his studies where he again played the latter of the two sports.

“It was very aggressive and it was still a team sport and it was in the water and very different,” Hale said of water polo. “I didn’t have any experience with it, but I learned it very quickly and I had a great time. I had been a lifeguard so I was familiar with the water. It was extremely physical and competitive.

“With (rugby) I was looking for that same camaraderie that I had before. A lot of the inspiration was to look for the same thing that took place on that sophomore team and that is what drove a lot of things in my life. It’s the It’s the very reason that, you know, when you get knocked down, you get back up. It’s the reason that I kept going knowing that there’s always accomplish things you don’t think you can. And it’s it. It’s that exact model. When you graduate, you kind of grow and you move on, but I still wanted that, that part of my life, right? So, I just saw it and I found it ultimately with open water swim.”

Hale would move into adulthood and create a life in business that has been bountiful and would soon allow him to pursue his newest love in ice swimming.

“It was an extension of the same thing and now it’s more individual rather than it is team,” Hale said. “But I still have an entire team. I couldn’t do what I do without a team.”

Adulthood calls, competitive desire still boils

Hale would get married in his 20s and while doing so entered the workforce with Fidelity Title Company (as a VP Sales Manager for six years) and Grubb and Ellis (commercial real estate) in sales.

He ultimately started his own mortgage bank company (Hale Financial) which he ultimately sold to BNC National Bank in 2009.

Hale then started Hale Global Capital which focused on projects including real estate and a myriad of other businesses.

“I turned businesses or property to sell them. I just turned to projects that led to a host of things being like the ECOM business and all those other businesses are just a derivative of it,” Hale said.

Despite being busier than a beaver, Hale still found time to be active and he needed to be.

“My blood pressure soared and I was just always working,” Hale said. “I wasn’t healthy and it cost me my marriage and it cost me a lot. You are so focused on an outcome or a style and things around you suffer.”

Hale settled into Laguna fulltime in 2008 after his divorce and one day found himself looking out over the waters and came across his newest challenge.

“I kept looking at that island out there in the distance and I think, ‘I’m gonna swim that – nobody’s ever done that,’” Hale said. “The next thing you know, I’m gonna I’m gonna start open water swimming. In rugby, I was getting hurt, playing a lot, and it didn’t carry the same merit that it used to – to go into an office with a shiner or, you missing something. It began to have a diminishing return. So, knowing I needed to do something, open water swimming seemed like a great alternative.”

Hale learned quickly the layers of challenges that stood before him.

“I started doing it in La Jolla and I started progressing,” he said. “I put together a team with my daughter (Faith who started while in junior high school) and we were the first to swim from Catalina to Laguna, to the mainland, in three different attempts – and that was great. I then swam the 42 miles of Orange County and we were the first to do that (2020).”

Since then, Hale has swam all over the world including: the San Francisco Golden Gate Swim (2014, 2015, 2018), Coronado Bay Swim (2015), Lanai to Maui swim (2013), Alcatraz to Aquatic Park (2012-2014, 2016-2018), the Island of the Sun to Island of the Moon at Lake Titicaca in Peru – 12,300 feet above sea level (2016) where he finished first, the Golden Gate to Bay Bridge in San Francisco (2014), the Vermont Winter Swim at Lake Memphremagog (2016-2023), the Swim Coney Island winter swim (2017) and the winter swim at St. Petersburg Russia’s Neva River (2019).

It could be a lake, river, stream, ocean and frozen or not.

“We are not, particularly fans of wetsuits in any in any temperature – they are an equalizer,” Hale said. “We go as natural as possible – cap, goggles, swimsuit, earplugs. There is a lot of breath control. There are marathon swim that can go 10 kilometers or more.”

Hale admits he jumped into the water full bore.

“I just went and just did – It just started, I don’t know how else to explain it,” Hale said. So, I will tell you before I did the Laguna crossing, the biggest challenge that I had was getting over the mental barrier of swimming at night in the ocean. So, what I would do is, in the evening just after dark, I would go to Oak Street and swim down the main beach and back, which is about a two mile loop all by myself: Just go out and just swim. You know, you deal with all the psychological challenges that come along with it – What was that? Did something touch my foot. Did I see something? Is there something behind me? Is that a jellyfish? Am I gonna get stung? Am I lost? Am I going in the right direction? Can I see the shore or what if I get tired? What if I have a cramp?

“After a few weeks of doing it, you don’t deal with it anymore. It becomes second nature. That is really what was kind of part of the transition – You’re in the open water, which is really amazing and realize you’re in the middle of this body of water and it’s moving, and you’re just a part of it. The stars and the bioluminescence underneath look the same. You look up and see stars. You look down you see bio, you know, it’s open. There’s no land in sight, there’s no light. You’re kind of like in a weird dream.”

Hale said that his team consists of observers and a kayaker and a boat captain as support – with as many as six members.

“You have different people on a boat, so you have somebody that’s observing – usually one or two – and they do everything from count your strokes, your food intake every 20 minutes to how often you’re urinating and you keep all kinds of records,” Hale said. “That’s really what separates you. It’s not about just completing the swim; it’s how you complete it. You can’t touch a boat. There can be no assistance. You get your feed every 20 minutes or so. It’s thrown out in a line with a water bottle and you suck the nutrition, carbohydrates, some protein and some flavor.

“Your body is not set to digest while you’re exercising, so you eat when you train. You have to train and eat along the way because your body can get digestive distress. Every 20 minutes you just keep yourself hydrated, give yourself a little bit of nutrition and you really make progress. It’s amazing what it does.

What does it do actually?

Hale has swum with a team and alone and both have their equal exhilarations. He has endeavored to achieve greatness in warm waters and as cold as it gets, reaching temps that hover just over freezing.

“I swam from the Island of the Sun to the Island of the Moon (Bolivia, approximately seven KM) and I was the first man to do it without a wetsuit,” Hale said. “Being in Bolivia, it is also the highest navigable lake in the world.”

Hale admits he won’t go out and run a 4-minute mile or passing serious skateboarding tricks, but he ha found his competitive soul mate.

“Compute the likelihood of me getting first in cycling, running, weightlifting, you name your sport – whatever it is, it’s slim,” Hale said. “The likelihood of me doing that in open water is so high. It is something that is so far out of the norm, that there’s only a select few people, fortunate or unfortunate enough to be bitten with that bug.

“It’s who I am. You just get out and get dried off and get back in the cycle to get back in the water again. The one thing about open water swimming is you don’t see your destination. It’s not like a track and running in a circle. You’re following the land lines. Here, you can’t tell if you’re making any progress and if it’s dark, there’s fog, then there’s texture on the water – there’s all these things going on, no light. It’s really a trip.”

Hale says that open water swimming has led to a healthier lifestyle (he reports have 12.8 percent bodyfat)

“I’m not a guy that just eats broccoli and all that, but at the same time, I don’t eat pizza every day,” Hale said. “I’m not a sleeper and at I’m an early guy, so I’m up at I’m usually up between 4-5, work out at six and am finished up by 7:30. My day is underway.

Uh, just because I work at that hour and I usually work out at six. Um, kind of finished up with that by 7 o’clock. My day is underway.”

Hale also loves the sense of community that the sport breathes life into.

“If you are a traveler, this is ideal. You swim in some of the most beautiful places in the world, and it will push every single limit that you have both mentally, physically and emotionally. You can do it anywhere and in extreme weather.

“It’s an amazing process. It’s not only good for you physically, but again, it also can kill you – you can have a heart attack, hypothermia. You can pass out.”

Lexi Allen, a lifelong swimmer and member of the Open Water Swimming Association since 2011, has traveled the world and watched various swimming events. She currently coaches many swimmers of all kinds in Newport, California and other locations.

“I have been a professional open water swimmer myself,” she said. “I’ve done marathon distances – those are all 15 kilometer races and up. We have small races anywhere from like 800 meters to a mile and anywhere in between those distances and marathon swimming. One thing I have not done is ice swimming myself – I’ve done some cold swimming like below 60 degrees, but not what Tom does. I’ve coached him in the pool because I do a lot of coaching back home. He’s had me help his stroke technique or work on his endurance and his speed in the pool.

“Tom is extremely passionate about open water. Every time I see him, he’s so excited to tell me about the events that he’s doing. He’s always going somewhere. As you know, you can’t even get in contact with him sometimes because you’re like, ‘Where in the world is Tom?’ It could be something that he just thinks of on his own, something that he just wants to check off the box. But he’s always up for a challenge, and he’s always motivated to just, like, follow his passion and see the world that way, too.”

Allen says it takes a certain type of person to open water swim, especially in the colder extremes.

“You can’t just do it,” Allen said. “You have to really train your body to do that. Tom is doing races, events. I believe he did a 10K or something like that. He swam in 31 degrees Celsius or 31 Fahrenheit in the water. That’s a whole other level – That’s over 20-something degrees of what I think is cold. It takes a totally different speed and mental strength.

“It’s so trendy now to do ice bath and I know it’s good for your muscles and mind. It’s good for digestion, circulation – a lot of benefits.”

Allen says that open water is about not knowing what to expect compared to take a dip in the pool.

“From one pool to another it is very similar,” Allen said. “Open water is always challenging. You can’t just like jump in and be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m gonna swim there to there like I do in a pool.’ There’s so many elements to open water that are just strategic to complete something like that – waves, different temperatures, currents, buoyancy issues, some waters are salty and some lakes where you feel like you are going to sink, since it’s cold water.”

Allen says that Hale taking up the sport so late – almost 40 at the time – is impressive in its own right.

“He’s swam well, since I’ve known him and to take on a new sport and do something so challenging later in life when you haven’t really had that background in is an incredible thing for me,” Allen said. “I compare it to skiing. I tried skiing for the first time, like 5-6 years ago and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I did it, I tried it and was like, ‘this is hard.’ Learning a new sport at an older age is incredible. To pursue and go for a challenge like that? I’m really, really proud of him.”

Allen warns that if someone wants to take a shot, it isn’t as simple as watching a YouTube video and learning how to play a guitar.

“Swimming is usually a steppingstone,” she said. “You can’t just go normally like Tom: You can’t just be like, ‘Hey, I want to be an ice swimmer.’ You can’t just reach that level right away. It’s gonna take a lot of acclamation trying to get used to that water. You can’t really go from a non-swimmer to an ice swimmer right away. You want to learn swimming technique. You’re gonna get in the pool and you have to be able to actually swim. You have to be able to understand how to breathe in the water. You’re gonna jump into the ice and you’re gonna be breathless if you can’t swim. And you’re also breathless from the cold.

“That’s not gonna work. I would recommend sitting in the pool until you can feel comfortable in the pool. Open water swimming is anything but the pool. Maybe start a step up from the pool, go into a bay or a calm lake. Get familiar in there because a lot of people often get disoriented. A bay is very similar to a pool – flat and there’s not waves or anything, but you can get delirious because you don’t have that black line in the pool to follow. It’s not just like something you say, ‘Ice swimming, let’s do that.’ It’s a whole progression of things that you need to do to get there.”

What’s next?

Hale has his eyes on another swim in Estonia in March for the world championships and he does plan on swimming both the North and South poles.

There he will likely see more sharks and orcas and jellyfish during his travels.

“It’s one thing seeing them, but nothing like being in the water with them,” he said. “You don’t know if a shark is messing with you – they attack from the bottom. They aren’t like Jaws and come cruising along the top of the water with their mouth snapping at you like a Pac-Man. They’re called the man in the grey suit or the tax collector for that reason – grey on the top, white on the bottom.”

Twelve years of open water swimming, long and short distances (which resemble the swim meet format most are familiar with) have imprinted itself on Hale who has found a new love in his life.
“You swim usually no more than 100 meters in the water and I am looking to do my first kilometer in under 40 degrees in one swim,” Hale said. “The longest I’ve swum is no longer than 500 meters in ice and in open water, about 12-13 miles. My best time is 19 hours for a continuous swim (in Catalina). That took me five years to get to.

“You just do it, buddy. I’m an open water swimmer. I am a competitor. I compete with myself. I compete for first, and I look for opportunity and things that other people find excruciatingly difficult.”