Of the five stops on our Golden Circle excursion in Iceland, the Secret Lagoon ranked dead last on my excitement meter. It wasn’t because I dislike warm water. I love warm water. We have a hot tub at home. I’m practically a warm-water connoisseur. No, my hesitation had everything to do with the pregame festivities. Somewhere in Iceland, someone decided the proper way to relax was to strip down in a communal changing room, squeeze my aggressively average middle-aged body into a swimsuit in front of complete strangers, take a mandatory shower while carefully avoiding accidental eye contact, and then act as though this was perfectly normal human behavior. Judy, ever the optimist, smiled and said, “It’ll be fun!” She has said those three words before. They rarely precede something I would have voluntarily signed up for.

So, in the interest of preserving marital harmony, I followed directions, survived the changing room without creating an international incident, and joined Judy in the thermal pool. It was beautiful. Steam drifted across the water while volcanic rock framed the lagoon. We slowly wandered around looking for the warmest spot like two human rotisserie chickens. It was peaceful. Relaxing. Picturesque. And after about fifteen minutes, I was bored out of my mind.

Sharing a hot tub with my wife is enjoyable. Sharing a giant natural hot tub with my wife and three busloads of strangers is…different. There are only so many laps you can make around warm water before your brain starts looking for a side quest.

That’s when I discovered the cold pool.

Now, Judy insisted on testing the water first. Rookie mistake. If you’re going to make a bad decision, don’t let facts interfere. Just commit. She dipped a foot in, immediately reconsidered every flight that had brought her to Iceland, and stepped back. I climbed in, lowered myself into the water, and began repeating, “Oh my gosh…oh my gosh…OH MY GOSH,” with all the confidence of a man who was suddenly questioning whether circulation was really all that important.

I managed to sit down. Judy’s body held an emergency board meeting and unanimously voted against the proposal. She was back in the thermal pool before I had finished convincing myself that the pain was temporary.

Not far behind her, I returned to the warm water where my body slowly remembered how nerves were supposed to function. That’s when another man from our excursion wandered over to the cold pool with his son. I asked if I could join them because apparently nothing builds lifelong friendships faster than voluntarily lowering your core body temperature together. We introduced ourselves, talked about our excursion, and eventually discovered he was from Oslo.

Of course he was.

I couldn’t accidentally be freezing next to an accountant from Nebraska. No, I had to find a Norwegian. A real Scandinavian. A man whose ancestors probably considered frozen lakes to be recreational facilities.

Since we had visited Oslo a few days earlier, we talked about the palace and the King’s Guard. When I mentioned taking pictures with the guards, he casually informed me that he had once been one of them.

Naturally.

So now, without either of us saying a word, my brain quietly transformed this conversation into an international competition.

The amazing part was that talking distracted both of us from the cold. The water didn’t get warmer. My body wasn’t any happier. But conversation somehow convinced my brain to stop sending constant updates about my rapidly disappearing body heat. His son wisely climbed out first. Then, after another minute or so, my Norwegian friend stood up and climbed out.

I waited.

One Mississippi…two Mississippi…then I climbed out.

Was he competing with me?

Absolutely not.

Did he know there was a contest?

Not even a little.

Did I still consider it one of my greatest athletic accomplishments?

Without question.

I have no trophy. Iceland did not present me with a certificate. There is no internationally recognized governing body for “Middle-Aged Men Sitting in Cold Water Slightly Longer Than Necessary.” But somewhere in my memory is the undeniable fact that I remained in a freezing Icelandic pool a few seconds longer than a Norwegian, and nobody can ever take that away from me.

The return to the thermal pool was glorious. My body didn’t simply warm up; it rebooted. Every nerve ending woke up one painful pinprick at a time until I felt like someone had microwaved me back to life. It was oddly satisfying, which explains why I kept repeating the process over and over during the next hour.

That’s when I noticed something.

The women floated peacefully through the lagoon, chatting, relaxing, and enjoying the scenery exactly as the Secret Lagoon was intended.

The men wandered over to the cold pool.

One by one.

They all wore the same expression—the look every guy gets right before making a questionable decision simply because another guy already has.

Some dipped a toe and immediately abandoned the mission. Others managed to sit down before their nervous systems filed formal complaints. A couple. Three brothers. Several confident-looking men who discovered confidence and body temperature are only loosely connected. Everyone of them climbed out before I did.

Somewhere during that hour, the Secret Lagoon quietly became the Men’s Invitational Cold Water Championships. There were no officials, no spectators, and certainly no prizes. Just a handful of middle-aged guys unknowingly competing in an event none of us had discussed.

The rules were simple.

Last man shivering wins.

Looking back, I don’t think I proved I was particularly tough. If anything, I proved something I’ve suspected about men for years. Give us a perfectly relaxing experience, and we’ll invent a competition. Give us a beautiful Icelandic lagoon, and we’ll ignore ninety-five percent of it because there’s a tiny freezing pool over in the corner daring someone to do something stupid.

Judy left relaxed.

I left convinced I had defeated Norway.

Honestly, we both had a wonderful afternoon.

I’m just fairly certain only one of us enjoyed the lagoon the way it was originally intended.