(First day’s swim here.)

As promised, dear reader(s), here is an overview of my second swim workout in lake Issyk Kul. For this swim, I smartly got up early enough to avoid the crazy jet skiers, and apparently the strong currents and waves. Flat, beautiful water, 22C.

Isn’t that beautiful? I was very happy to see the water. Additionally, it being around 0815 or so when I started, the sun was low enough to not be too much of a burn risk. Although I had my wife slather me with sun screen anyway, just to be certain. The water was a beautiful temperature and I jumped in and started off to the eastern most red buoy. Once I got there, ready to start my watch, I realized I’d forgotten to start my Garmin, which was safely ensconced in my SaferSwimmer dry bag. So back to the pier I went to open the bag and start the watch. Took some doing, balancing on a ladder, but I was able to reseal my bag and start my swim, back at the start buoy.

Like before, you can see how slow I am. Unlike the previous day, I went out to the end of the red buoys (marking the territory of the resort we were staying at) on both sides, a distance of almost 500 yards. I experimented with straying farther from the buoy line, as you can see by the tracks. No, who am I kidding; I just can’t swim straight. The water was nice and flat, but those buoys were still tiny, and hard to see in the distance, from eye level. (I preached to my triathletes to get their eyes down to water level prior to the swim so they could see what the buoy would look like while they’re swimming…good advice!) My SaferSwimmer didn’t get bopped around as much as the previous day. Now here’s a close-up of the swim:

Again, went down one ladder and back up another. Isn’t that pier cool? Each one of those “flower buds” is like a huge patio that you can sit on all day and relax. Truly wonderful. We’re planning to go back at the end of August, when the Kyrgyz Olympian, Akhmed Anarbaev has his swim festival. Not sure if we’ll stay here again (quite expensive during peak season), but I’ll certainly get more swimming in! Next up, however, is Croatia!

Oh, and I have to add another picture of the wonderful views: