For novices contemplating taking the plunge this coming Friday as part of the annual New Year’s run-swim, one of southeastern Connecticut’s must enduring and endearing traditions, allow me to clarify a few misapprehensions.
First of all, Fishers Island Sound is actually quite balmy this time of year and any television news coverage you may have seen of previous years’ festivities, in which participants screamed like banshees and raced out of the water as if it were sulfuric acid, was part of an elaborate hoax.
In truth most of us splash around all afternoon, stage impromptu water polo matches, coordinate elaborate synchronized swimming displays and practice our swan dives and reverse flips. When we finally saunter out of the water around sunset we find the air quite pleasant, especially if there’s a strong breeze.
Particularly welcome is the abundance of snow and ice along the shore, which helps protect our bare feet from coarse sand and sharp shells.

It’s also most enjoyable running in wet shorts, which keeps our bodies from overheating.
These are the hallmarks of the run-swim, an event so laid back it doesn’t even have an official name, though its origins date back more than 40 years.
Faithful readers will recall that I’ve chronicled its history in the past, and I hope they will bear with me while I briefly recapitulate the basics:
On Jan. 1, 1969, three friends – Amby Burfoot, then of Groton Long Point, who a year earlier had won the Boston Marathon, Lee Burbank of Mystic and Marty Valentine of Noank – more or less spontaneously decided to take a dip on New Year’s Day. After driving to Esker Point in Noank, they dashed across the beach, plunged into the water and drove back home.
The next year the trio repeated this regimen, but in 1971 a handful of other friends had joined the group and they agreed to combine the swim with a five-mile run. They elected to start from the Pequot Avenue, Mystic home of Johnny Kelley, Amby’s high school cross-country coach who himself had won the Boston Marathon in 1957 and competed twice in the Olympics. In order to extend the distance to five miles they moved the swim to Groton Long Point’s Main Beach.
In the ensuing decades the event has grown in popularity, and now attracts a few hundred crazed participants and at least that many spectators. Attire ranges from tuxedos to thongs, from wedding gowns to bikinis. Noisemakers, party hats and various refreshments consumed en route contribute to the festive atmosphere.
It’s all free, open to everybody. You don’t have to run the whole way – though many participants lope back to Mystic after the swim, making the total distance 10 miles. The pace is as languorous as the slowest runner, and the leaders stop frequently to let stragglers catch up. A police escort, of all things, instills at least the illusion of order.
Unlike other polar plunges throughout the region that are fundraisers for one charity or another, this New Year’s run-swim is dedicated only to one cause: the freedom to proclaim, “I have taken leave of my senses.”
So consider yourself invited. Show up at Pequot Avenue in Mystic before noon, or meet at the beach around 1 p.m.
Trust me, it’s a blast.
Best of all, you’ll be hailed like an elite athlete completing the Olympic marathon as you make that final dash across the beach. Don’t worry about hitting the water. You won’t feel a thing.
.