Being a badass, part 1: it takes a Russian to swim when no one else is. ;)

But even we, Russians, have our limits. There are two reasons to refrain from swimming for open-water fanatics like yours truly once autumn comes.

One is the cold, obviously: while your wetsuit, even a full-body one, keeps your body warm when moving, your hands and feet are an entirely different story. In fact, that is what happened to me early this season: having nearly lost all feeling in exposed skin after swimming for only ten minutes, I had to wait for another month for this glacial lake to warm up.

The second reason might seem surprising: when the temperature gap between day and night widens, and the body of water cools off even on reasonably warm days, goggles fog up immediately. In a sandy prairie lake this wouldn't be an issue, but hitting a giant rock in the shallow waters of a glacial lake is less than appealing.

And so, I await my not-so-triumphant return to the overly chlorinated indoor pool.