Some people prefer to lie down on the couch in the warm living room on New Year’s Day and rest from the exertions of New Year’s Eve. For others, it definitely has to be a long walk on the first day of the year. And then there are those who go into the ice-cold water, like Norbert Mayer and his troops. Every year they meet for the so-called Isaran swimming at Flauchersteg. And there have never been as many as this year, says Mayer happily when he is caught on the phone on New Year’s afternoon. “It was a blast.”
About 80 people ventured into the Isar, Mayer had expected 30 to 50. More and more people are realizing “the health benefits that the cold brings, including psychological ones,” he believes. When the weather is cloudy, you don’t even get into the winter blues phase; ice bathing clears your brain, so to speak. “You go into the water and forget everything you had to worry about before.” Unfortunately, it rained briefly at twelve o’clock while we were swimming together – “but the ice swimmer doesn’t care.” Afterwards there was vegetable stew with sausages, cake, prosecco and beer to warm up.
The cold clears the brain, so to speak.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
Norbert Mayer is 65 years old and started ice bathing twelve years ago. Since then, more and more people have joined, and it has now become a real movement in Munich, he says. From students to members of his age group, everyone was there on New Year’s Day. And while more men used to go for icy swims, today there are at least as many or even more women. Mayer fully intends to continue climbing into the Isar two or three times a week. “You have to stick with it.”