In the Big Pool with the Big Boys

Today I got to play in the big pool with the big boys. Picture this ... 08:00 on a Thursday morn, Virgin Active swimming pool surrounded on ground level by the dudes who pull and pluck weights attached to thick reinforced threads of steel, looming above the pool are bikes, spinning machines and treadmills. But the real action is down below in the swimming pool where the big boys swim ...

Four lanes of team swimmers, 5 to a lane, seriously churning up the water as they notch up megamiles on their well-toned arms, pecs, six packs and legs. And in the 5th lane closest to the wall , reserved for casual swimmers? That's where I am, cycling atop a pool noodle, very much resembling a seahorse. I do hold a certain fascination for the fitness fanatics around me, because I have my own personal biokineticist gently easing me into the various complicated permetations of where the noodle needs to be positioned and exactly what I should be doing to the errant knee (and at this stage - the many other errant body parts that have forgotten that they need to work in a certain pattern in order for me to propel my leviathon bod across the length of the pool).

My progress is sedate and laborious in comparison with the team swimmers zooming through their multiple lengths, bragging with the prowess of being able to do those fancy flip-flop turns at the end of each length as I reach for the wall and gasp my last breath, having managed to co-ordinate my legs in cycling backwards for the first time. Memories of having been a provincial sportswoman in my youth are feint and fuzzy - or is that merely the result of lack of oxygen to the lungs due to inordinate effort? How are the mighty fallen ...

Let it suffice to say that my heart rate was raised and yay! Today I felt that I had a great workout - I got to sweat!

Water ... me ... my knee ...

And I DID look as gorgeous as I thought I might in my cozzie! I decided to forego the lumo orange bathing cap and went with the more sophisticated little black number that hugged my ears enticingly - and prevented me from hearing the biokineticist's instructions, so I had to tuck it behind my ears. Oh, the horror ...

And then came the actual exercise routine in the pool. Walking forwards, backwards, sidewards, frog marching and knees up Mother Brown - all designed to get my knee to listen to the intent of my mind. Sloooooowwwww ... After an hour in the pool where I felt that I had not worked out because I hadn't even broken into a sweat, I heaved my body from the water and took my first step back on Mother Earth to discover that an additional 100kg (at least!) had been added to my frame as I entered the world of gravity. Maybe the water exercises do work after all?