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Tara Young is one of them. When we show up at 6:30am, Young already had a saw in hand, ready to cut away the ice that froze over the hole from the night before. "Before I started doing this, winter was kind of a nuisance and something that I didn't enjoy. Something that I just suffered through," she says. "This practice has totally changed my relationship with winter," Young adds. Buoyed by her enthusiasm, Roop and I followed her instructions and quickly got into the lake. Chest deep in near-freezing water. My brain goes blank. I'm breathing heavily. Trying to absorb the shock to my system. My body goes numb in the cold water and a sense of calm settles in. I'm surprised how fast the shock wears off. My field of view opens back up. I feel blood pooling up around my heart, filling me with energy and a sense of well-being. All the while, the regulars laugh, chit-chat and shower Roop and me with encouragement. And guess what? We stayed in the icy water for 5 minutes. Five minutes! "Winter is hard in Minnesota. It's dark and it's cold and it's really long. This gives us a place to kind of come together and have a good time and embrace this," Young says.
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