Run. Dog. Cat. Cat. Me.

It’s all fun and games until the clowns show up.

If you are an athletic type – and I mean any type of activity, walking, running, swimming, cycling, exercise classes – you know how hard you had to work to achieve whatever level of fitness you desire and you know how much easier it is to lose it than to gain it in the first place.  Also, as you both know, one thing I’m really excited about right now is that I’m enough out of shape that I’m burning extra calories doing my regular workouts trying to get rid of the extra weight I got from being out of shape.

The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round, ’round and ’round…

Another cool thing is that it’s all fresh and fun again.  There are more chances to have a feeling of accomplishment – I did 5 miles!  I haven’t done that since September!  I did 7 miles!  I haven’t done that since September!  I swam a mile!  I haven’t done that since Septnever!

Now that Becky’s foot is on the DL she’s concerned about maintaining fitness at just the time she planned to ramp up her triathlon training.  She can still swim and cycle but her running is being cut in half.  She is also, apparently, off all meds.  Again.  Every single time she gets on the Crazy Bus she gets me a ticket too.  And then I get on the damn bus with her.  And I’m ON my meds.

*BOINK*
Terri!  LOOK:
“If you start pool running for several days doing high-intensity workouts, you’ll notice something odd: you will be able to eat much more than usual! Even though your workouts are of a similar length to before you were in the pool, the thermal load of the water will spike your metabolism.”
AND: “Since water is a much better heat conductor, it will force your body to generate more heat to stay warm (and therefore burn more calories). As detailed in Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Body, this is how Michael Phelps is able to eat over 7,000 calories per day. It’s a combination of the time spent in the pool and the effect of the water.”
HE CAN EAT 7000 calories a DAY!
WHAT??!!

I say, obviously someone needs to take away Becky’s Googling rights.

I found myself digging aqua belts out of the pile at the pool where the Senior water working-out class was going on.  I had the brilliant idea of wearing my HR monitor and putting my Garmin inside my hat to keep it dry. The Garmin wouldn’t stay on my head long enough to get the baseball cap over it.  Finally I held it in place and Becky put my hat on me, except then my hand was stuck in the hat and when I tried to pull my hand out I ended up with the Garmin strap as a new kind of earring.  In the end, when I got home, it was for nothing because apparently the radio signals from the strap to the watch won’t go through water.

I say, smart radio signals.

Of course we had no clue what we were doing, strapping those stupid belts on and heading for the deep end.  As we got deeper in the water the belts started to try to float and soon the aquabelt was asphyxiating me.   I struggled to shove it back down on my waist and choked on a mouthful of water which I then snorted out my nose.  OUCH that burned.  Do not laugh when the water is at your chin.  Of course Becky found that hysterical, and then the Senior water worker-outers started staring at us.  I think several of them were former schoolteacher nuns.  Fortunately rulers are not part of the Waterworks Class equipment.

We bobbed forward, legs spinning out behind us.  We bobbed backward, legs spinning out in front of us.  We bobbed up and down.  We kicked back and forth and up and down and snorted water while we laughed like idiots in bumper cars rolling in circles.  “RACE YOU TO THE OTHER SIDE!”  We took off ‘running’ going the speed of slow, pumping our arms and running like mad, going nowhere.  I would be talking to Becky and realize that my back was to her because I’d spun off in another direction.  We could not quit laughing, and I kept thinking of the circus clowns who all climb out of the tiny little car and go running madly in circles, bouncing off one another.  The Senior water worker-outers were really cutting their eyes at us now.  Hey.  Exercising in Water is Serious.  Cheer down right now.

In about 5 minutes my HR was up enough that I had to stop for a minute and catch my breath.  The problem with having to catch your breath is if you quit the pool running you tend to start tipping over again, so if you’re out of breath, you have to make your way breathlessly to the ropes or the edge.  You can bob up and down again like the bobbing bird toy I had as a kid if you prefer, but you might end up snorting more water.  We kept going, back and forth.  Then we ran in circles, doing laps around the deep end.  One old guy in the water exercise class finally quit altogether and just stood in the pool, watching us working our a$$es off going nowhere.  He kept looking at us with the same expression Mo gets when he sees the coffee pot start:  head slightly to one side, intent, curious and slightly baffled.

“I see it, but it makes no sense.”