Laketime

Lakes are many things. They're very wet, of course, which is sort of the point. They're quiet things by themselves, but invite people (and birds at times) to make a lot of noise. They're smooth and reflective by nature, but that is easily upset, even with a small breeze or someone paddling. Unlike the ocean or even a river, they're contained, which adds an element of peace, especially when juxtaposed with mountains.

Mirror Lake, along whose shores we're staying, is absolutely perfect for paddling. It's about a mile long and a quarter mile wide. No motor boats allowed. Our house is kind of in the middle the long way, which give one lots of options for routes to take.

The first choice is, do you want to be in the water or not? For in the water you can either swim or go on a paddleboard with a rambunctious child who will push you in at some point. For on the water the three preferred choices are the aforementioned stand-up paddleboards (aka SUP- you stand up, not the paddleboard), kayaks, and paddleboats. There are a few canoes and waterbikes as well.

Of all these options, the paddleboat is definitely the easiest and least satisfying. It's very nice if you're going to a short distance, but good luck if you find yourself in the middle of the lake with the wind in your face. I'm not sure if it's by design, but the fact of paddleboats is that after a certain point, if you pedal harder, the teeny paddles move too fast to catch any water and so the thing just stalls. I was in a kayak yesterday afternoon watching these three tween-looking kids try for what seemed like a half hour just to turn around and head back to their hotel. They weren't still out there at 8 this morning so I guess they eventually made it back.

Swimming is set up for the Ironman Triathalon that happened a couple of weeks ago and an Ironman 70.3 (?) that's going to be here in a month. The 70.3 thing exists I assume because whoever runs Ironman is trying to extend their brand to cover any legit triathalon. I'm not sure how good that strategy is, because there have always been lots of triathalons but Ironman stood for something. It was 140.6 miles, with a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile full marathon at the end. I've ridden my bike on the Ironman route and it's hard but not impossible. The real Ironpeople do it twice though. Anyway, anything less would seem to require a less impressive sort of metal. Pewterman maybe.

Back to swimming, here they do one lap around a lake-long line of buoys. I assume they do 2 laps for the big race unless the do it in Lake Placid lake, which is bigger, instead. But every day I see people in wetsuit tops swimming around the buoys. It's pretty impressive really. I can swim about a half mile in open water before I have to rest, and I'm not a bad swimmer or anything.

Aside from all this there's yoga on the lake, and if you haven't done a downward dog on a paddleboard you haven't really yoga'ed I guess.

The lake is pretty quiet early in the morning and around dusk. Those are my favorite times. I typically kayak in the morning and SUP in the evening.