Week 37: The Aqua Jogger....Really Week 36 and 5/7th's

I am officially an aquajogger.

The term aqua jog sounds so pedestrian....such a bait and switch!

I will call 36 weeks, 3 days my last maternity run on land. The white flag has been raised. I reserve the right to retract that statement if I am still pregnant past September 9th, in which case you may find me running hills to expedite delivery. As much I enjoyed the "zen" of running throughout my pregnancy Monday's run sort of fell apart.  The great part of the run was chatting with my rock star friend Julie. The bad part was my foot started hurting gee and I patiently gave it 4 whole days of rest to heal. The foot wasn't the worst pain in the world but after I stopped to walk for some reason I think my watermelon sized child was squishing an important blood vessel. It wasn't hot, I ate a whole Power bar for breakfast, I didn't feel hungry or bonky, I peed clear 4 times that morning. I became dizzy and I had to sit down in the sand. Dizzy spells are fairly common in pregnant women but this was my first. I started to wonder if maybe it was the day I would give birth. From where we sat we could see lifeguard tower 4 and 5 . We contemplated which tower Julie would run to if indeed it was the day yeah I know it routinely takes 7or 8 hours to even get through the first stage of labor in which going for a walk or to your community pool is recommended and you will not yet be admitted to the hospital but for the appeal of this blog we'll pretend it was possible a lifeguard may have been needed for the delivery. Tower 4 vs tower 5, all lifeguards can't be equal. One might have more birthing experiences than others. We could have chatted all day but the dizziness only lasted about 5 minutes so I guess we'll have to meet like normal people do. After that I had no more issues with dizziness but my foot tightened up. I hobbled for the rest of the day, irritating the other areas of my foot that weren't injured. You know how that goes. Between the dizziness and the inconvenience of limping while trying to organize a nursery, do laundry, water the garden, grocery shop and attending to our duck Petunia I decided that running just wasn't worth it.  Let's face it: I outgrew my feet, or at least the right one. Time to quit but.........

Photo from i <3 running.

I was thinking I'd check into the gym and become an ellipticizer and then I thought of aqua jogging. Some people learned it all in kindergarten but I didn't. I'm a late bloomer. I learned all I know via social media: blogs and Facebook. I probably would have continued with my assumption that aqua jogging is more about this....

 Thankfully when I commented on Facebook that I was considering trying aqua jogging fellow Facebooker, blogger, and triathlete Mama Simmons commented that she aqua jogged a lot near the end of her pregnancy. She is pretty much a bad a**  and looks nothing like the ladies above so I figured it was good enough for me. Then I remembered Beth aquajogging when she had a stress fracture. She was the fastest amatuer runner at Kona. Plus I remember something about Paula Newby Fraser (who won the Ironman one jillion times) only running in the pool for an extended period of time then winning Ironman. Hmm, maybe there is something to this aquajogging.

I tried it and I can see why PNF won the Ironman. For me, it is way harder for me than running on land. In part this was due to one of the master's coaches who also coaches water polo  He recognized me and started yelling instructions to me. I'm flailing trying to stay afloat and I hear "If you are going to insist on aqua jogging get it right. Lean back, hips under the shoulder, knees up,up, up! Higher."  Just as I'm thinking apparently he forgot I'm pregnant. He yells is baby OK? I say yeah and he says  "go, go, go!" I felt safe running on land without wearing a heart rate monitor all the time but I was thinking I needed  my heart rate monitor. I would have expected this kind of workout in a Crossfit studio!

Aqua jogging doesn't have the same runners high as land running but there are some pros especially for pregnant people.

• Time effectiveness. If you run after swim there is no time wasted showering and changing between workouts.
• You are closer to the lifeguards in case you go into labor. Although I hear lifeguards hate aqua joggers for obvious reasons....they have to watch the dork like maneuvers.
• Less laundry
• Less exposure. Seriously, when the baby dropped, so did my belly below the bottom of my shirt, while aqua jogging only my head sticks out. 
• Time goes by surprisingly fast. Maybe this isn't the case for everybody. When you are as aquatically challenged as I am there is no boredom as you are busy making sure you don't sink
• Not drowning is a total body workout
• No expensive gear. No need for "big girl" running shoes. You can wear a belt but if you run in the deep end you don't need one. Maybe advanced aqua joggers need a resistance belt but I can't imagine needing to increase my resistance.
• No expensive rehab....well at least I haven't found a way to hurt myself yet.
• Nobody can accuse you of heel striking
• It makes your legs skinny. Well relatively skinny,  and probably only if you are pregnant or have vascular issues. Rosanne Barrs legs will likely still be fat when she exits the pool. Like any get thin quick scam it doesn't last long. Vanity yes, but it's pretty nice for an hour.