Leighton Beach Fremantle was thronged with people on Saturday January 20 as crowds came together for the Guinness World Record – world’s first ever, biggest, group ice bath.
The event was the brainchild of Mark Hughes from One Life Live It: a company focused on helping people break out of negative mindsets and limiting behaviours, often associated with anxiety and depression.
The event hoped to raise awareness of the benefits of cold-water exposure and breath work to improve both physical and mental health.
At midday the 537 participants made their way down to Leighton Beach where more than 40 inflatable pools awaited. They were already full of seawater. Forklift trucks delivered pallets of ice. Each pool required 125 x 5k bags of ice. Participants collected the ice bags and placed them around the pools. There were 12 people to each pool.
Regular Have a Go News reader Jean Hudson was part of the event.
She said: “Once the ice was added and the water temperature checked – our pool was five degrees, we were ready to go.
“Guinness Book of Records adjudicator Pete Fairbairn gave further instructions that we were required to simultaneously submerge up to the neck in the ice bath for three minutes.
“Only 483 participants were needed for this to be a record. However, 509 hardy souls managed to submerge for three minutes, thereby creating a new world record,” said Jean.
“All profits went to Beyond Blue, an Australian mental health and wellbeing support organisation that address issues such as depression, suicide, anxiety disorders and other mental health issues.
“Once we had warmed up a little, we joined Cold Nips, an Australia wide community movement that promotes wellbeing and raced and plunged into the turquoise ocean at Leighton.”
Well done Fremantle on breaking a new record.
