Patten, 21, is no stranger to long distance swimming, having come third in the 10km open water swim and making the final of the 800m freestyle in Beijing.

BBC: Patten aiming to swim the Channel

The pool I swim in does not open until 6 a.m. and is not available in the evenings or weekends.

CNN: The key to fitness? Schedule it in

Darker-fleshed fish that swim in cold, open waters, such as tuna, herring, and mackerel, store fat in their flesh and are high in omega-3s.

CNN: How to buy the best fish

The open-to-the-public swim starts at 1 pm on 1 January from the boardwalk at Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn.

BBC: An icy dip off the coast of NYC

While a map easily identifies the many small and large mountain lakes, mostly unknown to tourists, I was keen to find the perfect one for a long-distance, open-air, cold-water swim.

BBC: Long-distance swimming in Nepal��s glacial mountain lakes

Once you become a Linux Jedi Master feel free to take a swim in the ocean of alternative open source filesystem types.

ENGADGET: A guide to Slackware and Arch Linux: getting your hands dirty with Linux

She says she chose Lake Ontario for her swim because it's one of the hardest open-water swims in the world, and she wanted to "accomplish something difficult" for children who fight cancer.

CNN: 14-year-old swims solo across Lake Ontario

She talks to Olympians and to open-water champions like Lynne Cox to find out why they live to swim, why swimming is man's most sensuous sport (because skin is his largest sensory organ) and why it keeps your arteries elastic, your joints supple, is good for your heart as well as your brain, and offers more than a cursory help in the fight against ageing.

ECONOMIST: Lynn Sherr��s new book offers all the skinny on dipping

She is a fixture of the open-water swimming scene of New York City and currently holds the title of fastest woman to swim around Manhattan at 5 hours, 44 minutes.

WSJ: N.Y.'s Tour de Hudson