Thursday, October 6, 2016

Broken Workout 1: The Aquajog

Yesterday morning, my alarm went off at 5:45. Sleepy cat removed from my side and hungry cat fed, I somehow got me and my gym bag down to the car. Ragnar Rachel met me at the car to start what I'll refer to as the Broken Workouts from here on out.

Victoria shared a couple of resources with me to get me kick started in the world of aqua running, one of them being this blog.

I arrived at the pool, grabbed a belt and jumped in the "leisure" lane since, in case you weren't aware, aquajogging moves you at about the pace of a snail. An aquarobics class was in the back half of the lane, but no worries, I thought, I could just use the half of a lane.

No dice. Two lifeguards and a manager came over to tell me I needed to move. Fine, I get it. In our ridiculously litigious society, their permit wouldn't cover me if I acted like an idiot and hurt myself and decided to sue. I was offered the therapeutic pool (which is just over 3 feet deep). When I declined, to the credit of the manager, he went over to the high school girls cross country coach who was shepherding in her 20+ girls to the far lane.

And just like that, I was invited to join the Wilson High School Cross Country Aquajog workout.

Mostly, I did my own thing and let me tell you, if you want something that simulates the heart rate you can achieve running, you can find it with a water belt and a deep enough pool. Occasionally, the coach would cheer me on, give me a few pointers and tell me to just push her girls out of the way if they were being slow.

It was kind of like a bunch of bobbing snails chasing each other, but in the end, I accomplished a 30 minute "shake out" run from the race this weekend and a lot of admiration for the Wilson High School Cross Country Coach.

Two notes:

  • I'm getting a lot of heat at the point of contact between my suit and belt. Victoria's suggested that the belt needs to be tighter than a weight lifting belt - hard to breathe kind of tight - prior to getting in the pool
  • I need to work on loosening my arms. While you are supposed to maintain fists when running in the pool, perhaps I was a little too anxious and wound up with sore forearms from squeezing for 30 minutes

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