I struggled through two, then three, then four widths. Jenkins was beside me in the support boat with a white board. He wrote down my core temperature. It had dropped to 37.2℃. I was exhausted, but he would not let me fail. Just two more laps. I struggled to put one arm in front of the other. I forced myself to work harder and harder, but I became slower and slower as the cold tightened around me.
Then the final lap. My arms felt like lead, and there was no strength in them. They turned slowly -- one, two, three. Finally, I reached the shore, exhausted and frozen. I stood up. My legs were weak, but I made it -- I set a world record for the longest swim in ice water -- 1,200 meters in 23 minutes 50 seconds.
Once out of the water, I was at the most dangerous stage. My core body temperature had dropped to 36.1℃, and then it started to plummet as the cold blood in my limbs returned to my core.
My team bundled me into a boat and rushed me to the nearest hot shower. Dugas was reading out my temperature -- "35.5, 35, 34.4, 33.8" Finally, it bottomed out at 33.6℃, hovered for a few minutes, and slowly started rising. He sighed, and his confident smile reassured me that I was now safe.
"You have done it again, Ice Bear -- with a little margin," he said. Forty-five minutes later, I had made a full recovery.
At the end of every swim, I vow it will be my last, but I break that promise every time. So I have stopped making promises. There are just too many reasons to keep going. So all I can say is that I want to return to that icy continent at the bottom of the world and push the boundaries just a little farther.
How far can I swim? Well, anything is possible with courage, determination and the support of an incredible and dedicated team.
Lewis Gordon Pugh, 36, is a polar explorer and endurance athlete from London.
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