This is a follow-up to my last post. Sarah, peace corps volunteer and member of my crew last month, Florida International collegiate swimmer and 2011 NJCAA National Champion in the 200 Fly, scholastic all-American and top-10 scholar athlete, will be crossing Issyk Kul’s “historic route” at the end of this month. Sarah’s window starts 23 August at around 07.00 local time, which is 01.00 GMT time and 21.00 eastern time and 18.00 pacific time the evening of 22 August in the U.S. If 23 August doesn’t work, she also has the boat reserved for 24-25 August.
Sarah’s got a tracker online, using the same service I did for mine, track.rs. The page for her particular site is already set up here, so bookmark it and set your alarm so you can follow her! More at the Lake Issyk Kul Swimming Federation on Facebook.
Sarah is an incredible swimmer and a great person. I fully expect my weenie time of 6:02.45 for the crossing will be destroyed by Sarah!
For posterity’s sake, I’m uploading my observer logs on the blog. In marathon swimming, especially when claiming as first, as I am here, it is important that an independent observer watch the swimmer, ensuring that proper marathon swim rules are followed. My observer Chris is a retired Army special forces officer and current State Department medical officer. The below are his notes along with some notes from the rest of the crew.
First, the original notes:
Chris, being a doctor, doesn’t have the best handwriting, so he provided a typed-up version of the above, on the MSF observer log:
Ladies and gents, I hereby announce my attempt at swimming across lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan, sometime between 6-8 July.
Lake Issyk Kul is the second largest alpine lake (defined as a lake at an elevation of 5000 feet or higher) in the world. The lake is approximately 103 miles long by 36 miles wide, and sits at 5,253 feet elevation.
Now before you get impressed: I’m not swimming the length or width of the lake. No no no. I am swimming a short, 8 mile section at the western end, or the “west crossing” among the three possible recognized by the Lake Issyk Kul Swimming Federation. I’ll swim either to the village of Toru-Aygyr. Unlike in my 2015 attempt, I’ve got a three-day window this year. The boat captain agreed to make his boat available each of those days. Each morning we’ll wake up, look at the weather and the lake conditions, and make the decision then.
Issyk Kul west crossing
There is a reason for my choice of crossing. The Kyrgyz have a myth about a famous horse who crossed the lake at that end. The story is too long to tell here, but if you’re interested, I retold the myth in this blog entry here. Anyway, I thought the distance would be a nice challenge for me at this point in my training (swimming on tethers in a 12m long pool!) and it would mean a lot to the Kyrgyz volunteers I’ve gathered.
The logistics for this thing in 2015 were difficult, but with the help of my crew from last year, it looks a bit easier now. I’ll be using the same boat captain as last year. He was terribly excited to hear that I’m trying again. Hell, at the end of my DNF last year, he looked me in the eyes, and told me “Mike, we expect to see you succeed next year. But please, choose a better month.” I also got a strong tentative “Yes” from the only guy who has crossed the lake (Akhmed Anarbayev) to be my official observer. (Last year he had to bow out at the last minute as he had to be in Bishkek on my crossing day for family business.)
In addition to my crew from last year, I will be adding a Peace Corps Volunteer who just happens to be a graduated collegiate swimmer from Florida International. She’s currently teaching English in a village on the southern shore of Issyk Kul and she’s also fallen in love with this beautiful lake. She intends on doing this same crossing in August this year, so she’ll be on the boat to learn about the process and meet the people she’d need in her attempt. Bonus: she speaks Kyrgyz!
So, bottom line: I will follow MSF rules. Last year I had one caveat: I wore water shoes from the beach entry, at which point I took them off and gave them to the paddler. This year I’ll try to do all the shore walking on my bare feet. My wimpy, sensitive feet.
I bought a Spot Gen, and I’ll activate it closer to the start. I’ll post a link to it here. We learned last year that all we could get from the villages around the lake was 3G and on the lake 2G. My son was able to update some via his phone last year, but it was extremely slow, so I’m guessing the Spot Gen will be the best way to follow, if you so choose. (With the advent of this new tracking system, TrackRS, I may have that available as well.) Also, once the observer is done with the notes and I get them translated, I’ll upload both the Russian and English versions for everyone to see. (I’m creating a Russian version of the MSF Observer Log, which I’ll also make available in case anyone else attempts to do a crossing in a Russophone country!)
This year I have a little extra impetus to get my a$$ across the lake: The ambassador has been telling every local official she’s met here that she’s got “an American who wants to swim across this beautiful lake.” The governor of Issyk Kul province even offered to provide a dump truck full of lake water to fill the ambassador’s pool so I could get used to the water.
No. Not me. I’m not the old goat. Though I may be to some. No, I’m talking about the old goat over there in San Fran. The old goat who’s been a member of the Dolphin Club for almost 70 years. The old goat who is still swimming in the frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay at the ripe age of 90. The old goat who served in both WWII and Korea. I’m talking about Walt Schneebeli.
This video is short, and well worth your time today. Do yourself a favor and watch it. You’ll be happy you did.
Unfortunately, my pool access has been put on hold. Maintenance had to be done so I’ve been out of it for a couple weeks now. That’s ok, better now than closer to the big swim (attempt #2) in early summer.
Plus, I’ve been lifting with my awesome wife. Lifts are getting bigger, at least in some of the lifts (bench, mostly). I’m still barely lifting what a guy my age and weight should lift, but I have hope that sometime in the future I’ll be able to lift without embarrassment.
The pool should be available mid-week, so here’s hoping I’ll be in the pool again very soon!
Meanwhile, marathon swimmer extraordinaire Dan Simonelli just replicated George Young’s 1927 Catalina Channel swim. Yes, 89 years later, in the cold that is January, Dan swam from Catalina Island to the California mainland in an awesome time of 13:31.11. Congrats Dan!
Got linked to this article from the MSF. It’s titled Captain Webb’s legacy: the perils of swimming the English Channel. This article is probably not a good idea to send to your loved ones who want to know what it’s all about, your swimming The Channel.
The article is full of all the bad things that could happen to you while trying to swim to France. From jellyfish to cardiac arrest, channel swimming is dangerous. But isn’t that where the excitement is? Isn’t that the challenge than many of us lust after? Isn’t that why Hillary climbed Everest? Isn’t that why the pioneer of channel swimming said “Nothing great is easy“?
So, finally, we have a no-shit, unassisted, observed, longest-distance swim on the record. ChloëMcCardel, 29-year old awesome open water swimmer, on 23 October walked onto the beach in Nassau, Bahamas after swimming 42.5 (yes, forty-two and a half) hours from the southern tip of the island of Eleuthera, covering 124/5* kilometers.
Read that paragraph again, and find the important word(s). If you said unassisted, observed, and longest, then give yourself a gold star.
Chloë swam unassisted, meaning she had no special suit, no special mask, no fins, no jumping on the boat during lightning. Chloë was observed by someone known to the marathon swim community, and independent of Chloë and her “machine”, one Mr. Dave Barra, marathon swimmer extraordinaire himself. And when we see his observer’s notes, I’m sure we’ll see details about Chloë’s swim, details seriously lacking in other recent attempts. Chloë’s swim is the longest on record, which can only be said because of the previous two italicized adjectives.
Great job Chloë and I hope you recover soon from your jellyfish stings and your 42.5-hours horizontal in salt-water!
*depending upon whom you read; I may change these numbers once Mr Barra’s observer notes become public. Note I said public, another requirement of a real marathon swim.
News came to the marathon swimming world today about magic goggles that’ll take you to the next buoy in a perfectly straight line, no need to sight. Yeah, you read that right. And yes, these are the goggles I’ve been dreaming of for years, although my imaginings include a heads-up display arrow in the goggle always pointing to the next buoy. And of course I’m against them. But should I be?
Basically, what we got here is a pair of goggles that do actually point to the next buoy when you push a button on them. If I understand it correctly, you look to your next buoy, push a button, and then you’ll be guided to that location. If you get off course, it’ll warn you with a yellow or red light in the goggle cup on the side that you’re swimming to. So if you’re slicing, you can start swimming to the left to get back on course. Once you get to the buoy, look to your next buoy, point the button, swim. Look forward to a logjam at the buoys as all your buddies stop to tread water and click their goggle-mouse.
The immediate response by some in the community was WTF. As well it should be because all the advertising and response has been through the lens of a triathlete (see what I did there?). Most of the comments on the company’s FB page are from triathletes looking to spend as little time in the water as possible without actually putting effort in to getting better at open water swimming. But just because triathletes are for it doesn’t mean we should be against it.
Nevertheless…I’m against it. In races, definitely. How can directors ensure every swimmer has the same benefit? Should there now be four classes for each sex? Wetsuit with special goggles, wetsuit without, skins with or without?
But what about marathon swim races or solos? Ones in which you have a kayaker who is your eyes and does the navigation for you? How is that different? Some would say these goggles are pretty much the same thing.
Marathon swimmers embrace the challenge of crossing wild, open bodies of water with minimal assistance beyond their own physical strength and mental fortitude. There are ways to make the sport easier, but marathon swimmers consciously eschew them.
An oft-heard adjective among marathon swimmers is unassisted. This in no way means you cannot have pace swimmers, or a kayak or boat to navigate for you. But one category of equipment that is absolutely not allowed is “[w]earable electronic devices that transmit information to the swimmer beyond the time of day and elapsed time” if you are going to claim an unassisted marathon swim. That’s the rules. And these FrankenGoggles (h/t Loneswimmer) aren’t part of these rules we marathon swimmers hold dear.
