Aren’t man-eating catfish scary?

Belarusians have swum across Lake Balhash and set a world record

A grandiose sports event has taken place in Kazakhstan — a marathon swimming race across Lake Balhash, which is the world’s second largest saline lake after the Caspian Sea. The task for the team was to swim 38 kilometres. And they did it! Moreover, they hit an all-time high having set a record of 11 hours, 39 minutes and 10 seconds.

Twenty minutes faster

There are three winners in the team — Belarusians Aleksandr Makovich and Dmitry Yegorov, and Russian Pavel Pankovsky. The guys started preparing for one of the longest ultramarathon swimming races in the post-Soviet space a year ahead of the event, with dozens of gruelling workouts a week, both in the swimming pool and in the open water. Yet, standing at the starting line, a slight excitement was still there. Dmitry Yegorov recalled his emotions,

“We started from the Almaty side and finished in Priozersk [Leningrad Region, Russia]. It was a swimming relay race and we replaced each other every 30 minutes. We were focused on setting a record. We wanted not only to beat the best result but also to have a good margin of time at the finish line in order to set a high bar and challenge our fellow swimmers, to increase the motivation of the team that will swim this marathon next year.” 

The guys managed to do it — they improved the previous record by almost 20 minutes! The athletes have a solid background. Thus, Dmitry Yegorov swam across the Bosphorus Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, Lake Baikal, the Neva River in length (77 kilometres!). The Belarusian swimmer also has a twenty-kilometre swim to the island of Valaam [in Lake Ladoga, Karelia, Russia] and an escape from the Castle of If to the shores of Marseille under his belt. The latter is an official competition in freestyle swimming in the open sea among amateurs. “It is considered one of the most difficult, spectacular and romantic routes. After all, it repeats the daring escape of Edmond Dantѐs, the hero of the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas,” Dmitry clarified.
The oldest member of the victorious trio, Aleksandr Makovich, is 46 years old. It is already the third season that he has taken part in the marathon swimming race. According to Aleksandr, when health requires attention, sport is a kind of salvation. The winning team swam in this composition for the first time. They got acquainted with each other during a 24-hour swim in St. Petersburg in April and decided to join forces on the way to a record. The men live in different cities, so they trained separately. “The main danger of separate training is the false hope for your teammates. That is, you may think, ‘If I do not prepare well enough, the team will pull it off’, but during the swim you find out that the others also thought exactly like that, and the overall result may be not so great,” explained Dmitry Yegorov. “That is why we regularly compared our positions in the group chat, reporting on training sessions in order to get in the best shape for the competition.”

Lake Balhash from space

Waves up to three metres

The team swam in difficult conditions. The thing is that strong steppe winds blow continuously near the Balhash. Due to the small weather window, there was no time for a slow start or rest. Fortunately, the weather favoured our team and the wind was not so strong. However, sometimes it generated metre-high waves. By the way, only four teams participated in the swim. Three teams dropped out of the race.
Lake Balhash is unique. Its western part contains fresh water, while the eastern part is described as brackish and salty. In order to better imagine the gigantic size of the lake, here are some figures — the Balhash is over 600 kilometres long, and its width ranges from 9 to 74 kilometres in different places. The area exceeds 18,000 square kilometres. For comparison: the area of the Naroch, Belarus’ largest lake, is around 80 square kilometres. “We swam in fresh water. They say that in this part of the lake there are man-eating catfish, whose length reaches 2-4 metres,” Dmitry revealed a shocking idea. “It might be just a tale invented by the locals to discourage children from going swimming alone. However, it seems that there are several historically documented facts of these fish attacking people.” 

Honey, nuts and lots of protein

The swimmers were accompanied by a boat with a support team that monitored the athletes’ general state and food intake. So what was on the menu? According to Dmitry Yegorov, there were no dietary restrictions, “The main thing is that the food should be high in calories. Carbohydrates help you not get tired. We had thought out our diet thoroughly in advance. So, we took three types of food. Of course, it was sports nutrition, including all kinds of protein bars, energy gels and isotonic drinks. They give an instant surge of energy and strength. We also took sweet stuff — tea, honey, chocolate, nuts... These are fast carbohydrates, which boost your strength literally in 5-10 minutes. Obviously we could not do without slow carbs — porridge and pasta.”  
When asked if there was a moment when it seemed that there was no more stamina to move on, Aleksandr Markovich answered, “There were difficult moments, but I was not going to drop out of the race because I am used to keep going regardless. Withdrawing would mean letting down my teammates, and none of us could afford that. The support of the boat crew helped a lot.”  
The key task is to evenly distribute force throughout the distance. When swimming for a long time, it is possible to enter a kind of trance. Some swimmers even manage to doze off while their arms continue to make swimming movements reflexively. They say that being in such a meditative state for a long time can bring about cool insights into work and new goals.
The athletes monitored the time, distance and speed via satellite communication. Aleksandr recalled that the realisation that they had won the marathon came a few kilometres before the finish line. “We were set to establish the record, that is why we took the victory quite calmly. It was our family members who were the most delighted. I phoned them the first thing after I went ashore. They were very excited,” he shared the details. 
In conclusion, Dmitry Yegorov gave advice to those who want to break the team’s record, “Do not underestimate the power of waves on the big lake. They can come in the same height as at sea, and it is useless to try to fight them. The best technique for dealing with waves is to relax and succumb to the way they turn you over, while keeping your hand hard underwater as you paddle.”
 

By Inna Gorbatenko

Photos are provided by the heroes of the article