Yesterday I swam my second time with the wonderful people at the Eurasia Cup open water series here in Moscow. As mentioned before, these folks have a series of 14 open water swims throughout (mostly western) Russia, including four in Moscow proper. It was a wonderful surprise for me this time around in Russia.

The wonderful organizer of the series, Fyodor Teplyukhin, Master of Sport, gifted me the shirt above, the only one in blue. I had asked him over FB how I purchase one of his shirts, and his only response was to ask me my size. When I got to the swim yesterday, one of the young volunteers, Yegor, called to me, “Michael, I have a shirt for you.” I learned a little lesson in Russian next:

Me: How much [does it cost]?

Yegor: XL

Me: Ah! I mean: how much does it cost?

Apparently, in all my years of studying this infuriating language, I never knew that their word for “how much” also applies to the size of things. I had to throw the verb (“to cost”) in there in order for him to understand I was asking how much the shirt cost. Then, of course, he looked at me and said: “Michael, no charge!” These guys are so nice.

Anyway, on to the swim.

It was a nice day, although the last few weeks in Moscow (actually the whole summer) have been weird, weather-wise. We seem to go through all versions of summer here in one day, from blazing hot, to cool breezes, to thunderstorms with crazy winds.* All in one day. Yesterday’s forecast called for partly sunny with 20% chance of rain. It was beautifully sunny upon arrival and pretty much kept to the promise of partly cloudy throughout.

Registration was quick, as they know me. I paid my fee, got my cap and chip. This time the whole family came. Daughter #1 was going to run the entire time I was swimming, in preparation for her marathon in September. Daughter #2 and my wife brought their scooters, so they were set to have a nice day scooting around the lake and verdant parks in this part of Moscow.

I was looking around for people I recognized from the previous two swims. No one looked familiar; seemed there were fewer people there than on 11 June. That’s too bad. I was hoping to see my friend who worried about me without wetsuit at the last swim here in Strogino lake. The girls and I went to the start.

We watched the 3.8k swimmers line up. Very happy to see a couple skins swimmers, including a woman who ended up finishing second, and a couple of men in speedos. The water didn’t feel any warmer than last month, but I was soon to learn that it was. As I started to walk into the starting corral, I heard someone call my name. Sure enough, it was my friend Damir from the 11th. He was there with his wife and son. He came right up to me and said, “Michael, I want you to know that because of your example the last time, I have decided to swim today without wetsuit.” I congratulated him, told him he’d enjoy it, and see him at the finish. (He beat me by about 10 minutes last time.)

Thirteen of us, ready to go, two “brave” souls without wetsuits. I think they all would have enjoyed the swim without the suits. The initial dive-in was cold, sure, but unlike last time, where I would hit cold pockets and feel a little shock, this time there were no cold or warm spots. The water was deliciously cool the entire time. I forgot about the water temperature within about six strokes and just concentrated on following the route, which was a little different than last time.

Last time, we started down the beach about 100m to the right of the finish area (the blue box on the right in the circle). This time we started right by the recreation building, to the left of those “sea” pools (the blue box on the left in the circle). Otherwise, it was pretty close to the same. We didn’t go as far to the right of the lake; in fact, that half-submerged houseboat that confused me last time was no worry this time. We didn’t swim close to it at all. The 3.8k swimmers did that big loop once, while we did a small 2k loop after the big one.

We started about five minutes after the 3.8k swimmers, and I was shocked pretty early on, maybe a kilo in when I passed a couple of them. That is quite a boost, really. However, something about how I wore my cap wasn’t working for some reason. The damn thing kept trying to come off. I had to do quick stops often in the first half of that big loop to adjust it. I got pretty good at using one hand to pull it back down my forehead while stroking with the other arm (aligning with my coaching maxim: Always be moving forward).

The wind was really howling yesterday and there were parts of the swim where I thought I was swimming in the ocean. On that long stretch at the top of the lake, the wind was coming from behind, which a lot of people like. Me, not so much. I don’t mind the push, but along with each wave comes the downward part where you feel like you’re going backwards. Hate feeling like I’m not making progress! In addition to that, the buoy kept blowing up between my back and sometimes between my right arm and body, interfering with my stroke.

A word about their safety cover. Very robust, but not like in the states. No kayaks or SUPs. Nope, they have rubber dinghys, jet skiis, small motorboats. And if they need to get to a swimmer, they don’t care if their propulsion kicks up waves! (They were, however, very aware of where all the swimmers were, so no worries about being run over.) We also had the MChS (Coast Guard) boat out there too. The day being so windy, one end of the lake (left-most in the map above) was full of windsurfers. The MChS guys kept them on their end of the lake, except for the one who got through and breezed by me only about 10m away.

Swinging around on that big loop I caught the wind in my face for what seemed like a very long time. At this point I passed another 3.8k swimmer, and for the entire return trip to the finish chute he was behind me. Another boost to my ego. I made a tactical error when completing this big loop. Last time, there were buoys near the finish chute, and we 5.8-ers were to swim between the finish chute and those buoys and then head off on our small loop. Well, I swam toward the finish chute, but then saw another orange cap (5.8k) swimming along to the next buoy, and the straight line to that next buoy was much shorter than it would be if I went to the chute. I adjusted toward that buoy and put my head down. Then I remembered Fyodor telling another one of the swimmers at the briefing that we needed to swim “near the finish chute.” Damn. I took a sighting again and noticed a different orange cap swimming close, right past the chute. OK, that’s confirmation enough for me. I adjusted tack again and went to the chute. Once close, I took what felt like a sharp left turn and headed out for the small loop.

When we first passed these first buoys, there were four of them. Easy to know if you were hitting them correctly. The first and third had a white top while the second and fourth were all red. In the explanation, Fyodor told everyone “Swim past the buoy with the white hat, then without, then with the hat, then without.” Well, at some point after everyone passed the buoys the first time, they took the third buoy away. That confused me. Did I miss one or swim on the wrong side of it? Scan the horizon. Nope, it’s gone. Head down. Pull.

One of the boats was with me when I turned around the fourth (third now) buoy. I knew to aim for the very large/tall buildings, but I picked the wrong ones. The boat guys aimed me in the right direction, I picked out what to sight on, and again: head down and pull. I was dying to ask them if I was the last swimmer. They stayed with me just about the entire time. But, shortly after turning, probably between pulls 300 and 400 (yes, I count my strokes), I saw another 5.8k swimmer pass me going the opposite way. Hurray! I’m not last!

The wind was blowing so hard that by the time I got to the finish chute, it was perpendicular to me. Initially I thought “Jeez, how off course am I?” Then after landing and waiting for others to come in, I could see how the waves were moving the chute all over the place. I was indeed not the last, or second or third last. While the results don’t show it, there was another male swimmer who came in about 20 minutes after me. I remember because he had bare arms, and Damir’s wife and son thought it might be Damir, until the guy got to the finish chute and we all realized he had on a farmer John wetsuit. He was pretty hilarious, actually, because he put his timing chip on his foot. We were trying to figure out what he was doing hanging on the finish banner, until we saw him pull his wetsuit leg up and hit the banner with his ankle. For some reason, he is not listed in the results.

Damir finished just under three hours. We cheered him in, and I asked him how he felt. He loved swimming without the wetsuit. I think I’ve converted him!

As for me, I cut about 19 minutes off my last time. I think I swam straighter, too, at least that was my thought when I finished and turned off my Garmin. Last time, I swam 7.2k over a 5.8k course. Poor navigation. This time, the Garmin read 5.98k. Wow! Significant improvement. Then I got home and uploaded the tracks and got this.

The Garmin lost sync twice for some reason. I wasn’t doing backstroke or anything. In fact, it kind of pissed me off the first time. See, whenever I train, I set the GPS to beep/shake at me every kilometer. I turn that off for races. I was sure I turned it off. But sure enough, a bit into this swim, the Garmin starts vibrating. Dammit, I thought, it’s still set for every kilometer. Then, nothing else for a very long time. I kept waiting for the second kilometer. By the time I got to the finish chute the first time, I knew something was up. I thought maybe the Garmin turned off for some reason, or I had accidentally (how?) hit the lap button. Then, on the small loop, the Garmin went crazy again. What the hell is going on? Well, that map above shows what happened. And this continued later when we tried to find a different way home. The car GPS couldn’t get a connection either. Weird.

So, bottom line, not sure I swim straighter (5.98k) compared to last swim. I can tell you I swam faster! This time I swam it in 2:16.26 whereas last time it was 2:35.21. Nice!

*There’s a joke in Moscow that goes: How can you tell it’s summer in Moscow? The picnic got cancelled. 

Already scheduled for a swim back in Strogino for Saturday the 8th of July. (Also this Saturday!) Then on Monday one of my FB groups pops up alerting me to yet another 5k in Moscow on the very same day. And that one is even closer to my house!

But, I’m already committed to returning to Strogino to try and improve my time from earlier this month. So nice to have choices though!

In other news, Yes!

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. 🙁

For reasons beyond my control, I had to bail on the 10k in St. Petersburg this weekend. No worries. I would make up for it by fitting in a couple of open water swims in the lake I swam in last weekend, Strogino.

Brought the family. My eldest daughter ran (12+ km!) while my youngest and wife walked around the lake. I aimed to do 1:40 (to match my running daughter’s plan), but forgot to look at my watch when I started. I set my Garmin to vibrate every kilometer. My goal was 4k, knowing that I am slow in open water and when swimming by myself I stop a lot. From boaters not paying attention to me wanting to look at the surroundings, I just tend to stop often when I’m not “racing.”

And today was no different. I decided to try some new speedo goggles I bought a couple months ago. They are purportedly for open water, and I got them for a good price, so might as well try them now. Big mistake! No, that’s not fair. Better to try them today when timing didn’t matter. But they are not for my face. Nice goggles, otherwise. But I either have to wear them loosely (in which case water finally does seep in) or crank them tightly (and have my eyelashes hit the inside of the goggle cup…annoying!). I stopped about 10 minutes into the swim today and opened up my dry bag (uh-oh) to get out my regular pair. I did this operation as carefully as possible, but found out upon completion of the swim that I did get some water inside.

This whole operation took a while, as per Mr. Garmin. Almost 2:30. First had to open the dry bag. Then pull out the new goggles, stuffing them in my suit. Then close the dry bag. Then take off the outer swim cap. (Stuff that in my suit.) Take off the Garmin, hold that carefully. Then take off the leaky goggles. Stuff those in my suit on the other side. Continue holding on to the Garmin. Put the new goggles on. Insert the Garmin between the goggle straps. Put on the outer swim cap. Done? Nope. Take off the buoy. Thread the crap goggles onto the waist belt. Don the buoy. Now done. Thinking about it, I’m surprised it only took me 2-ish minutes!

Here’s the Garmin tracks:

That little diamond in the middle West of the track was fun. I found a field of white and red buoys. On the way back from that far turn, as I approached the half-sunken houseboat I talked about last entry, I came across this field. I decided to swim around it a couple times, practicing my sighting. It was nice! There’s a little pier out there. I did catch a boater coming out of the other side of the pier while circling those buoys, happy to be on the “safe” side.

The water was nice, probably 16-17C like last week. I was the only person in the water, besides the windsurfers on the northeast side of the lake. People were looking at me funny, but no one said anything. On the way back from that far point I heard (underwater) a boat coming. As always when I hear that, I stop and look around. Far enough away from me (100m?) and going like a bat out of hell was an MChS (Ministry of Emergency Conditions…think Coast Guard) boat. He was aiming toward that far point in the above map. What you can’t see is a little south of the end point there is an opening where this lake attaches to the River Moscow. In total, three boats during my swim, all far enough away from me. Not sure if that means the pilots saw me or not.

Tomorrow I’m going back with one of my neighbors, a triathlete. He’ll be in a wetsuit and I’ll bring a nice and brightly visible cap in case he doesn’t have one. Two swimmers in the water are better than one, but I always worry about these dark black wetsuits when the waters are dark, like this lake. Tune back in tomorrow for another report!

(First part here. Second part here.)

Now on to the analytics. Here’s my Garmin track.

As you can see, I’m all over the place. I really don’t swim very straight. Probably due to my breathing. For this swim, like almost all of my swims, when the rubber hits the road (hand hits the water?), despite all the bilateral breathing practice, I still breath on my right only. I caught myself slicing to the right. I used my usual breath every 8-10 then sight, and whatever I was aiming on moved to the left, so I’d have to adjust. All this back and forth, zigging and zagging, added more than a kilometer to what I swam. One of these days I’m going to have to practice what I (used to) preach.

To be sure, I took the turn points, the buoy locations, from my tracks above (I hugged all the buoys, that much I was sure to do) and put them into Google, then measured the distance. I came up with 5.9km. The Garmin came up with 7.2km from my not-straight routing.

As I’m not in the running for any sort of competitive team, I’m not all that upset about my navigation. Again, I still prefer to breathe every or every other right. When I’m escorted I go pretty darn straight, of course. Those are the times that my swim-time really matters. Issyk Kul last year and Manhattan next month.

Now that I’ve got all the logistics for swimming here in Russia down, I’m looking forward to the next one at this location. I hope the organizers keep the same routing, since I now know what to look out for (that damn houseboat!). We’ll see on 1 July.

(The first part, here.)

Now we are on to the swim. I gathered with everyone near the start. I met a local (well, they all are, actually) who mentioned he knew me from my FB post. (Oy.) Very nice guy with pretty good English. (I still spoke Russian with him and everyone, as much as I could.) I reviewed the swim with him as he was doing the 5.8k also. Confirmed what I had heard from the briefing, so I felt pretty confident that I knew where I was going. My new friend looked at me and asked “Will you be okay with no wetsuit? The water is very cold.” I had to ensure him (along with others) that yes, I intended on swimming this event skins.

There were only nine people swimming the 5.8k so it was a nice easy start. We were about 2-3 minutes behind the 3.8k swimmers. I walked slowly into the water till about mid-thigh deep then dove in…to freaking cold water. Of course I knew it was cold. The day prior some of these swimmers went and took a temp in the middle of the lake and got 16-17C, which is just fine. My six hours in Issyk Kul last year was 18-19C, so I knew to expect colder. But boy oh boy that first leap really takes your breath away. Would I be okay for 2+ hours?

As usually happens, within a couple dozen strokes I forgot about it. Well, not actually forget about it, but no longer worried about it. In fact, some spots in the lake were downright warm, probably creeping up to 19 or 20C. Delightfully warm enough to remember fondly during those times I hit the cold 14C spots! All in all, the temperature of the water was no worry to me. I knew I could spend a great deal of time in this water without worrying about hypothermia (or hyperthermia, for that matter).

The weather leading up to my swim was sunny and beautiful. Enough so that I had my wife slather my back with Desitin. Sun even stayed out during the briefing. Alas, 20 minutes later the clouds were out with what looked like no chance of sun for my swim.

However, Mother Nature helped me out a few times. The sun gloriously came out, warming my back and making me feel great. This happened three times during the swim and it was welcome every time.

I managed to stay with some of my fellow swimmers till at least the first three buoys, or about 48 minutes into the swim. Some 10K swimmers started passing me pretty early on, sitting pretty in their professional wetsuits, looking good gliding on the water. No, I’m not jealous. The swim got confusing around an hour in, when I thought I had somehow already done my first loop. Granted, I had no idea how long I’d been swimming. If I’d known I’d only been swimming an hour, I would have known there was no way I’d done 3.8k already.

I was confused because of an object I had noticed prior to the swim. Imagine a two-story houseboat, very large, but sinking a bit on one side, slanted over maybe 20 degrees to starboard. That was sitting halfway between the first and second buoys. At one point I saw it again, and was confused  how I had passed the start/finish area without noticing. You see, the finish area had a buoyed finish chute, that we swimmers would eventually swim through and tap the banner with the hand that had the sensor. On the first loop, we had to swim past that chute on our right and two huge red buoys on our left. (In the photo below, we’d be swimming from left to right. Look at the duck family!) How did I miss that? I swam past this houseboat twice.

Well, it wasn’t the same houseboat. I kept swimming for a while, trying to spot other swimmers with orange caps to follow. I thought I saw the finish up ahead and began to swim toward it. Was I done already? How could that be? Should I swim another big loop? You see, I wasn’t afraid of swimming too much. On the contrary, I was afraid of swimming into the finish, thinking I was done, only to discover all I’d done was 3 or 4K. I didn’t want them to think I was trying to cheat.

I saw an orange-capped swimmer treading water and I asked him if we were to swim to the finish now. He said no, we need to do a small loop yet. So it turned out I hadn’t passed that same houseboat twice. I hadn’t even finished a big lap yet!

I put my head down and headed toward the finish. I could start to hear the announcer and the music, so I then was sure I hadn’t done a loop yet. (Turns out I completed the first big loop in 1:35.) I passed between the finish chute and the two large buoys and proceeded on to the “small” loop. This damn loop took forever. An hour! It felt long. Way too long. I passed that damn houseboat again, this time for real. Other swimmers were few and far between, and many of them with white (10k) caps. Would I be last? Not that I care much about that. As long as I’m not last and an hour behind everyone. That can’t be explained by the wetsuit vs. skins.

Coming around that last buoy I remembered the organizer telling me to aim for the tall buildings. I had two choices, not too far apart. Two large buildings on the right, or three large buildings on the left. I chose to swim toward the middle of them. Which turned out to be the best idea. The finish was right through the middle. That long straightway was into current, which sucks time-wise, but I much prefer over swimming with the current directly behind me. It made it kind of exciting too! When you got waves moving you up and down, you have to adjust your stroke or you get off rhythm, which could affect your speed.

I could hear the announcer as I got closer. That finish chute is so much fun to go through. Really makes you feel like a professional swimmer to come through and tap the banner! Absolutely love it.

The walk out was nice. Sandy bottom, no rocks like in Issyk Kul. Little unstable as always. The organizer was there at the stairs, and the photographer was crouching in the water trying to get a water-level photo of me. So I smiled. This photo is missing from the FB page, so I probably broke her camera.

The volunteers started taking things off me. The sensor thing on my wrist I expected, but I had forgotten about the buoy; when she started going for my waist I was taken aback. These Russian women are forward! I know I’m a sexy beast, but really, my wife is right there!

Swim complete. Garmin time of 2:36.36. Official time of 2:35.21. Oldest guy there (for this race). Only skins swimmer. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

So what’s next, dear reader(s)? This group will have another swim at this same location on 1 July, which I’ll attend. This coming Saturday, however, is a swim up near St. Petersburg. I’m taking daughter #1. We have to meet at a metro stop at 0500 on Saturday for the 5-hour drive up. Oy! No worries. We’ll get back at 0300 on Sunday. OMG! What was I thinking?!

Next blog post: Swim analysis.