I was told to have an ice bath once, which I did once, and it was the most horrific experience. In my head it sounded like a great idea, so I filled my bath with ice and water, and it was absolutely horrendous.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have a pathological terror of falling through ice. I nearly drowned once. I fell off a boat and got a cramp, and was rescued by an oil-rig diver, a great bear of a man who simply leant into the water and scooped me out with one finger.
Being in South Africa, that messed up my body a little bit. I broke out in spots, and I got really dehydrated, and the water was really different. It was really strange, because you're on the other side of the planet, and you think, 'Oh, water is the same everywhere,' and it is, but it still felt strange.
Before competition, I always take an ice bath to make my body feel more refreshed. Then I always have coffee with a little cream and sugar. It's a superstitious thing.
Baths are my favorite thing. I can have two, three a day.
So it wasn't actually that bad, it took a couple of weeks to sort of get used to uh, you know, standing around and pretending to have ice shoot out of your hand, but once you got used to that it uh, it was actually not that hard.
I think a lot of contemplation happens in bathtubs. It does for me. Nothing like a hot bath to ease the tension and think about what's going to happen next.
When I was on the swim team as a kid, I used to hide out from my coach by going into the bathroom and hiding out in one of the stalls. And I would literally wrap myself in toilet paper so as not to get hypothermia.
I have a way of just being ice and just cooling situations and making things work.
As a child, I always wanted to be the last one to take a bath because I knew I could close the door and spend hours just having my bath and singing.
My mom worked for a doctor who had a pool that he heated to 90 degrees, and I hated cold water. My dad showed me how to dive in that pool, and pretty soon I started doing flips.