Aqua Jogging - not easy my friends.

My recovery has been going really well, sufficed to say that this morning for the first time I have zero pain. I keep waiting for the twinge in my groin to grab me or the the pain in my butt cheeks to come back but so far so good. It is such a welcomed start to my day and I can't help wondering that if I feel this good now then in 3 weeks when the kids go back to school I should feel awesome and ready to go again.

To add to my collection of rehabilitation exercises I went Aqua jogging yesterday, harder than it looks. Reading an article yesterday morning in "Triathlete" April 2010, it stated that deep water running was an effective way to recruit all your running muscles in a non-impact way but still effective in eliciting a good VO2 response. Although this intrigued me what really got me was the part where it stated that this one women "Kathy Winkler" crossed the finish line second in an Ultra Marathon last year and ranked Top 10 with the fastest splits and had done most of her longer runs in deep water due to chronic hip issues. Now I was really intrigued. So I packed my sports bag and my Aqua Belt - not the one pictured above, mine is slightly different and off I went.

I must admit, I felt slightly awkward at first, I felt like an big kid with my oversized floatie but this awkwardness was shortlived when I got going. It is quite a challenging activity to run and not have any point of impact to gauge where your feet should be. Your body also wants to instinctively lean forward and start pulling water with the hands to help. I found I really had a need to want to see myself move forward and make some ground, but the aim of Aqua jogging is to mimic form not propulsion. So I set myself the task to complete 4 sets of 120m. The length of the pool was 20m so I ran 20m nice and slow and 20m at race pace (or the equivalent) in stride tempo.

My heart was absolutely pounding after each set, I didn't care anymore what I looked like. I set set myself a goal to accomplish and I was determined as hell to finish it. I am sure to everyone else I looked like a tiny head just slowly gliding along the waters surface, but underneath it was a flurry of activity - much like a duck I would think. Good thing was nothing hurt in my hip, groin or butt during this activity but I did have soreness just due to the drag effect of the water on my muscles. It is an awesome activity, I would suggest this to anyone - injured or not.

After finishing my sets of 480m in total which took me about 30mins to complete, I did my spa/sauna combo again with the cold showers inbetween. Absolutely the best way to finish off any activity I would think. My muscles felt relaxed and invigorated, ready to tackle another day. Life is good.

"Challenges are what make life interesting;
overcoming them is what makes life meaningful".