Swimming in Siberia in Magical Realism

Got back from Vermont, unpacked, slept, repacked for Siberia and headed to the airport on Monday afternoon. Met up with Bill and Brad at JFK and landed in Moscow around 7am local time. We headed to our connection gate and ran into the Estonia team, Irish boys, and the Moscow contingent. After a false start, a delay, and a gate change, we flew on to Tyumen. When we landed everyone’s checked luggage arrived except mine, but I wasn’t too freaked out because I had a weird feeling that it was going to happen. I had packed a swimsuit, cap, goggles and toiletries in my in-flight tote so had the bare bones of what I really needed for the next day at least.

We jumped in our car to the hotel, washed up a bit, then headed to registration. Registration was completely messed up, I barely got my credentials in time to get to the Welcoming Ceremony and swim first thing the next day. We were late to catch the transport but my lovely friends waited for me and we jumped in a cab to the city Philarmonic. Met up with everyone, I still only my travel clothes of jeans, OTK boots, and a breton stripe teeshirt, but threw on a blazer and some red lipstick and called it a day.

Dima hooked us up with great seats and the show was ridiculous. A full 90 minutes of musical numbers, ridiculous dance routines, and even some pyrotechnics. Amazing. After the event we went to dinner with the English ladies from 10pm to midnight, it was nice but I was zonked. After dinner I was very happy to check at the desk and see my suitcase had arrived on the evening flight and was delivered to the hotel while I was out. Nice job Aeroflot!

Tuesday was the first day of competition, the 25 and 50 breaststroke. The way they run the events is you have a reporting time for the changing rooms, get ready to swim, check your bag, and then wait until they call your heat and head down as a group to the staging area. They didn’t call the first few heats (I guess just assuming those to go straight down) and one of the Belgian girls, Morgane, and I ended up running down to the staging area to make the 25.

It went okay, the day was sunny and fairly warm for Siberia, but the water was unlike any I have ever felt. Way harsh! It was freshwater below 0 which should not be possible but unfortunately I think the amount of chemicals in the water were preventing it from freezing. Still not sure how they seeded it but I was in the less competitive heat for the 25 and came 6th overall in the end. The 50 was relatively faster, but I was struggling with my breathing and ended up swallowing a lot of water. I almost threw up getting out of the pool, it was really embarrassing. Got 4th in the 50 but I was starting to feel kind of crappy. No podium for me on Wednesday and I wasn’t the happiest. After the day’s events I was zonked and ended up sleeping through dinner and the excursion that evening, oops.

The next day was the freestyle sprints. I woke up early that morning with what felt like a case of food poisoning, but I had a weird feeling it was from the water. In and out of bed for the next few hours, but things seemed to stabilize by the time I needed to go down for breakfast. Had some fruit and bread but couldn’t stomach my usual hardboiled eggs that keep me going for the day.

We had the 25, 50, and 100 freestyle that day, in that order. Another 4th in the 25, 3rd in the 50 and 2nd in the 100. (I had a close race in the 100 where I just touched out my good friend Barbara from Chile for 2nd so we were on the podium together.) Weirdly in the 50 I got a time penalty from the Russian judge which took me from 3rd to 4th but the IWSA protested and I “tied” for 3rd with a Russian girl, Elena, which was a bit weird. It’s a bit annoying because to make us both get 3rd place they changed my time to the same as hers even though I was over a second faster. I guess it’s better than 4 seconds slower with the original penalty. I was happy to make the podium that day and felt things were on the upswing.

Had lunch with friends, then retired for the evening as I was still feeling super-sick. The next day was just the 200 freestyle, and the breaststroke relay. We had to do medical checks for the 200, so went to the sports center to get blood pressure taken after breakfast. I still wasn’t feeling great but figured it would be a short day. The 200 felt okay and I got silver to Barbara, who is more of a distance swimmer and way better trained than me. To be honest I was thrilled to be on the podium with her and on the podium at all. (My best finish at the last World Championships was 10th so this was an improvement.)

After the 200 I got changed right away and went down for the relay. It was with Jaqueline (Germany), Roman (Russia), and Alex (Latvia) - we didn’t do particularly well but had a lot of fun.

After the relay I hung out with Talya and Luisa and we went to the Banya…it was amazing. They hit us with birch branches and we left feeling on a cloud. Another good day, and I was starting to feel a bit less queasy.

Had a nice dinner, then early to bed before the 450 the next day. I slept well for the first time in awhile and was able to eat a full breakfast finally. Medical check, got my credentials stamped, then out to the pool. Me, Nuala (Ireland) and Luisa (Brazil) in the staging area:

The fastest women’s heat was the very first event. I was happy to get it out of the way, but on the downside the pool had frozen overnight and while they’d cleared it, there were still tons of tiny shards of ice in all the lanes. Bill accompanied me as my assistant, and then it was time. The first 50 was the hardest - the faster I swam the more I felt the tiny shards were flying towards my face.

I knew I’d be cut up and wasn’t too happy about it. Because I am vain. Victoria (Argentina), Elina (Finland) and Barbara (Chile) were all ahead of me early on, but I wasn’t trained enough to keep up that pace. The water was strange and I knew I’d do well enough just to stay smooth and finish strong.

The laps passed quickly - I kept a close eye on Luisa who had fallen behind everyone because I was a little worried. She is strong but I knew she wasn’t feeling well either. Finally I was done and got right out - I put on my shoes and Bill handed me the towel with a strange look on his face. I looked at the towel and saw my bright red blood. Grrreat. One of the photogs caught almost the exact same moment.

I was really upset about my face and arms but needed to rewarm. Bill walked me to the recovery area, the Russian ladies took my earplugs/cap out and plunged my hands and feet into ice cold water while putting warm wet towels on my back and legs. The water literally had chunks of ice in it - this was a new technique as usually they do lukewarm to bring the hands/feet back gradually. I prefer that! After a few minutes of shivering they dispatched me to the sauna which basically a wood stove in a tent. The girls and I had a mini dance party around the stove, moving to warm up. Fun times. After I warmed up I got changed and went down to act as an assistant for some of the other swimmers.

Then it was time for the relays and I did the free relay with Colin (England), Roman (Russia), and Talya (Israel.) We did well in our heat and it was a lot of fun. I was still upset that my face was cut up but had to rally quickly as I was participating in the last event, a demonstration of the newest winterswimming event, the ice butterfly. IWSA gave me the middle lane and I was the only female. This was a huge honor for me. We paraded out and I was so happy to finally do my favorite stroke:

It felt great and I was on a high when I went back into the staging tent. There I ran into a few guys from Moscow I’d met at Murmansk last year, and they invited me to participate in their “Aqua Ice Aerobics” show. They didn’t speak much English and me even less russian, so I roped my friend Sakari into it as he speaks Russian (and had spent most of the day at the police station bailing out a drunk Finnish swimmer so was eager to get in the water.) I was super nervous that I wouldn’t understand the instructions and mess everything up but it went pretty well and turned out to be a TON of fun.

I was freezing but on a complete high from this ridiculous and unique experience, USA/Russia teamwork. I was really happy they’d invited me:

After the show program they did awards again, I got silver in the 450, then we went to grab a bite to eat and back to the hotel to get ready for the gala that night. I was feeling really ugly with my face all cut up but sucked it up, put on a pretty dress and went out. Table assignments were super weird and it was just me and Talya at a table with mostly Danish people, plus a very nice Slovenian couple we had met at the airport. We picked at our food, drank a lot, and then the awards started.

Natalia, Valerjie (Latvia), Me (USA), Alex (IWSA VP, Latvia), Jackie (England), Talya (Israel)

I won the first annual International Winter Swimming Association (IWSA) World Cup! It was my goal for the year to attend all the Cup stages (Jelgava (Latvia), Windemere (England), Skelleftea (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia) and Tyumen (Russia), and swim every single event of the Cup. I didn’t win every single event, but I won a lot, medalled in almost all, swam an insane amount of relays, plus a few demonstration events. Overall a good season. I got a big old trophy thing and everyone made me do shots and take photos with it. Kind of embarrassing but it was nice to feel so loved.

Me and my dear Luisa (Brasil) with the “Cup”:

The Aqua Ice Aerobics show program got 3rd place! We got a gift bag with local hazelnut chocolates, Russian tea, and VODKA. Oh yeah! And I was finally checking luggage so I could bring it home, not give it away! After the awards there was a ton of dancing, drinking, and general merriment. After the gala wrapped up we walked to a local club and continued the festivities there. More dancing, test-tube shots, and even a few love connections which made me smile to observe. Just after 3am I left the lovebirds and walked back with Brad to our hotel. He was ‘staying’ with Bill for the last night but they had a 6 or 7am flight so we hung out for a bit then said our goodbyes.

I went back to my room, feeling a bit melancholy (every time I achieve something big like this, I wish I could tell my dad) so I played old John Mayer songs on YouTube (hahahahahhaha), cried, washed up, and went to sleep. I had late check out and my flight to Moscow wasn’t until 8pm, so I slept in, grabbed breakfast, took a nice walk with Cristian to rescue Talya’s iPhone, and went back to sleep. Woke up around 2pm, repacked and got in the car to the airport. At the Tyumen airport I checked my bag through to JFK and just took a small bag with things for the next day. We hung out a while at the airport, then got into Moscow around 9pm, then to the hotel around 10. We were there during Moscow Fashion Week, so our hotel, The Metropol, was a little crazy. We went out for a late dinner with me, Talya, Cristian, and Jackie at this really random place and shut the place down. Cristian went back to the hotel but Talya and I took Jackie around Red Square as she had never been there. Got back around 1am, put Jackie in a car to the airport, then I went to do some work in the lobby and let Talya sleep. I had a bunch of stuff I had to catch up on so I snuck in around 4am and couldn’t find the lightswitch in the bathroom so washed up in the dark and went to bed.

The next day we woke up around 8am and went downstairs to the spa before breakfast. Talya had these cool sheet mask things so we wore those in the sauna, I took a quick dip in the cold pool and we showered and got ready for breakfast. Champagne breakfast at the Metropol complete with live harp music - always a treat. We headed out for a brisk walk around town, then I had to head to the airport. Smooth flight and easy subway ride home, A met me at the subway and then a lovely cuddly night together at home. Overall a good trip!

Last updated April 11, 2016