Swimming’s more fun with friends

Or a friend. Went back to Strogino lake today, bringing my neighbor. He’s a triathlete, former head coach of the club team at University of Montana, and he’s fast! I had no chance of keeping up with him, with or without his wetsuit. Yes, he wore a wetsuit, but who could blame him. He’s skinny, with little bioprene on him like yours truly. It was a farmer john-style suit, and he felt the cold when he dove in. But so do I. It is cold. He was prepared to come back to shore to take his suit off if he got too hot. By the end of our short swim, he said that he was warm enough and probably could have gone without. I think the water today might have been a half or full degree C warmer than yesterday. But who the hell am I to know. I’m often wrong. One of these days I’ll buy a pool thermometer.

Today we swam to the sunken houseboat. I had thought it was 300-400 meters away. Nope. I wore the Garmin outside my cap this time, and my fellow swimmer checked out the distance once we got there. A little over 500 meters. Nice!

The black dot is half-way through the first leg of our swim today. That first leg ends at the houseboat. We then sighted on a very high building to the southeast for the next leg. Where you see that little dip in that leg is where we stopped for a boat. The boat was going nice and slowly and the driver even waved to me, so I was sure that she saw me. We continued on till we couldn’t see the building anymore (the trees blocked it). We then turned back and headed straight (as straight as I could) back to the start. I sighted on the same buildings I had sighted on for the final leg of that race I did last weekend. It was a nice strong push for home, a little over a kilometer (I counted my strokes). But just as I was getting close to home, one of those MChS (Russian Coast Guard) boats stopped right by me. The driver told me no more swimming through the middle of the lake; I needed to keep “along the shore.” Damn.

So next weekend I’ll probably do a couple legs to the houseboat and along the coast, back and forth, boring. 🙁

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