FreeZE-style swimming??

Chilly? It's Arctic brass monkeys...

By PIERS HERNU - More by this author » Last updated at 19:32pm on 14th July 2007 Comments (2)

Today, this man will dive into the coldest waters on earth. His 1km swim would kill most men - yet Lewis Gordon Pugh has a secret weapon.

Piers Hernu takes the plunge alongside him to find out how he survives

Standing at the edge of the water, the snow crunches beneath my bare feet while an iceberg the size of a car rotates slowly in the green-blue water some 20ft from my frozen toes.

I'm shivering in my Hawaiian swimming trunks on the shore of a frozen mountain lake among the Norwegian fjords, more than 3,000ft above sea level.

Everything about this silent, eerie place screams danger, and I have good reason to feel nervous – the water here is among the coldest in the world at exactly 0°C – a temperature that, if I were to jump in on my own, would kill me within seconds.

Amazing video: Watch Lewis training for his world record attempt here

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Lewis Gordon Pugh races through the icy water

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In five years, no other journalist has agreed to join the man immersed in the water beneath me in these conditions and I now fully understand why.

"OK Piers, after three," he says, a look of intense concentration on his face. "One… two… three!"

There are some people so extraordinary and so expert in their field that you would entrust your life to them.

British maritime lawyer Lewis Gordon Pugh, 37, by some margin the world's most extraordinary swimmer, is one of those people.

Known as the "human polar bear", Lewis has swum (wearing only his Speedos, goggles and a cap) where no man has swum before.

He's submerged himself in all five of the world's oceans, including the Arctic and Antarctic, in conditions that would kill almost any other human being.

And he's astonished and confounded medical experts with his almost supernatural ability to withstand extreme temperatures.

Lewis is possessed of a superhuman – bordering on the superheroic – ability to raise his body temperature when faced with the prospect of icy water.

It was first observed by his team-mate Tim Noakes, a professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town, and dubbed "anticipatory thermogenesis".

It appears to be a Pavlovian response – the sight of cold water sends his pulse soaring and his body temperature rises from 37°C to 38.4°C (100°F) in 15 minutes, something that would take a top cyclist some 30 minutes of hard pedalling to achieve.

Last year, for the first time, Lewis entered the World Winter Swimming Championships in Finland against the finest cold-water swimmers in the world.

In the main event, the 500m freestyle, Lewis beat Russia's top swimmer, Alexandr Brylin, into second place by an astonishing 100m.

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Lewis Gordon Pugh stands up to the cold

"Oh, I love beating Russians," he grins across the hotel breakfast table in the remote Norwegian village of Jostedal, where he is in intense training for his most extreme and dangerous swim to date.

"For me, that's the real cold war."

For a man so singular of mind and so determined to spread his message, Lewis has a surprisingly mischievous sense of humour.

I am here to witness and, if I can summon up the courage, to sample a day's training for this momentous event, which takes place today, July 15.

As you read this, Lewis will be attempting to swim 1km at the Geographic North Pole in -1.8°C water – the coldest on Earth.

"No human has ever done a long-distance swim at below zero, so we don't know what's going to happen," says Lewis, eating mounds of cheese, ham and eggs in preparation for the day ahead.

"But I've trained twice as hard as I did for the 0°C 1km swim I made in the Antarctic in 2005, so I'm ready for it."

On July 9, Lewis and three of his 29-man team Professor Tim Noakes, along with his "mind coach" David Becker, and Jørgen Amundsen, the great-grand-nephew of legendary Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, set sail from the Russian port of Murmansk on board an ice-breaker that takes almost a week to battle its way to the North Pole.

And today, the four men will disembark and scout for a 1km stretch of polar bear-free shoreline. Lewis will dive in and swim for his life.

"As soon as I get in the water I hand over control of my life to Tim Noakes, who will be in a boat next to me.

"He will measure the time, my stroke rate, pulse and core body temperature, and convey that information to me on a board so I can decide if I should speed up or slow down.

"But if things seem life-threatening, such as my core body temperature dropping to 35°C, then he'll decide to pull me out.

"Skiing alongside me on the ice shouting encouragement will be my friend Jørgen Amundsen," he says.

"There has always been a fierce polar rivalry between the Brits and the Norwegians.

"There is no way I would give up in front of a Norwegian, and doubly so in front of a relative of Roald Amundsen. He will be there to pull me out at the end of the kilometre – and not before." While Lewis may have a keen sense of humour, he is deadly serious about his reasons for the swim:

"The objective of this and previous swims [such as a 203-mile swim down the entire length of the River Thames] is to raise awareness about the rate and range of climate change.

In the past four years we've seen an area five times the size of Britain melt away in the Arctic, and just ten years ago it simply wouldn't be possible for me to swim there at this time of year."

Lewis, the son of an admiral in the Royal Navy, was born and raised near Plymouth in Devon before moving to Cape Town, South Africa, at the age of ten on his father's retirement.

He had his first proper swimming lesson at the age of 17 – just one month before successfully swimming the chilly 7km stretch from Robben Island to Cape Town.

Having studied law there, he continued his studies at Cambridge before becoming a successful maritime lawyer in London.

We drive along a remote valley dwarfed by vast rocky mountains on either side until the road runs into a snowdrift.

From there we hike upwards for an hour through snow and rock until we reach a plateau with a frozen lake that has a small area of exposed icy water.

Lewis strips down to his Speedos, dons his swimming cap and goggles, puts on his iPod headphones (today it's Eminem) and closes his eyes.

Over the next 15 minutes he enters his extraordinary zone of concentration and "anticipatory thermogenesis" occurs.

Despite his calm expression, steam rises from his shoulders and rivulets of sweat trickle down his cheeks. "OK," he says suddenly, "let's do it."

Without more ado he launches his 6ft 1in, 15st frame headfirst into the depths, swims the crawl in a huge, languid circle, then returns to shore. "Now it's your turn," he says with a grin.

For a man who has tiptoed tentatively into heated swimming pools from Marbella to the Maldives, the prospect of immersing myself in the icy depths beneath my feet is not one I greet with relish.

"Three… two… one!" says Lewis, grabbing my quivering, outstretched hand and dragging me in to join him.

For a moment my whole body is stunned into numbness and then comes excruciating pain – like having every inch of your skin whacked with a hairbrush that has needles instead of bristles.

Next comes what kills you – a debilitating "cold-shock" spasm causing intense hyperventilation that leaves me gasping uncontrollably, flailing ineffectually and completely unable to stay afloat.

Thankfully, Lewis is prepared and with firm arms around my waist keeps me from going under.

"OK… enough!" I gasp between tiny, rapid breaths.

Grinning, Lewis guides me to the shore where I emerge shivering uncontrollably but with a much clearer idea of the type of challenge that he will be facing today.

As I hastily towel myself down, Lewis turns and strikes out for the nearest iceberg some 50 yards away. I am left scratching my frozen head in amazement, and wishing the "human polar bear"– and the real polar bear – all the luck in the world.

Visit wwf.org.uk/climate.