I spent a luxurious 45 minutes in the pool today, concluding with a soak in the warm pool- until I was kicked out because it was “closed”. Huh? No signs, no reason I shouldn’t be in there. Oh well! For the first time ever, I walked down the steps at the shallow end instead of plopping myself in at the locker room end and splashing to a start like I normally do. This presented a problem, because once I was in the shallow end, there was no way for me to lean over the side and ask people to circle swim. I couldn’t just show up in a lane and hope the others noticed me, but the only free spot was in the fast lane. So I went for it, taking up half the lane and hoping that nobody would decide to join because I was moving SLOWLY and the guy next to me was doing sprint drills. I had trouble catching my breath as I began and stopped to rest every 50 yds. I swam all freestyle and made it my goal to swim until my hip released and stopped hurting. Unfortunately that didn’t happen before I needed to take a pee break (why does this happen most frequently when I’m in the pool?). There is nothing less comfortable than getting out of the pool and walking into a cold locker room to use the bathroom, then pulling a wet swimsuit back on! After my break I decided to move into the rec swim lane and strap on a water belt. I spent the next 15 minutes “running” and “biking” around. I threw in some cross country skiing and and sumo lunges for good measure, then swam another 100 yds to stretch out. I attempted some handstands in the shallow end before jumping happily into the warm pool (then getting kicked out). My hip still hurts and unfortunately because of this, my prego waddle is back today. Oh well!
the workout:
600 yd swim, 15 minutes water running/biking
addition: I spent 10 minutes blowing up an exercise ball to sit on- first with my own air, practicing my labor counting & breathing exercises, then with a bike pump, strengthening my arm muscles!
