Aquajogging

14 Oct

Good news. My calf muscle is making steady progress. I can now hop on one leg with minimal pain, and the rolling massage barely even hurts. As a precaution, I'm not going to run until at least Friday morning. There's no hurry to get back. In the meantime, I just finished my second aquajogging workout this evening. I'm fortunate enough to have a small pool in my apartment complex, and even more fortunate to have perennially suitable weather for this sort of thing. Anyway, I "ran" for thirty minutes. I have the Speedo aquajogger belt, which is the only one that was available at Big 5. The difficult part is trying to attach it to your body. Since I'm evidently too thin around the waist (size 32), the belt rides up to my chest, which constricts my breathing (I did my first workout like this). You also sink lower into the water when the device is higher on your body, which isn't good when your pool is only 5 feet deep like mine. At 6 feet, my feet were scraping the bottom. So I had to make some unorthodox adjustments. I eventually managed to hook the belt around one leg, which allowed me to float higher in the water and did not constrict my breathing. In this position, I was able to get very good leg turnover. I could move even faster if I tilted my body at an angle.
The quality of the workout improved greatly when I made the adjustment, and I was able to put in a good effort. One unavoidable disadvantage of pool training is that your heart rate will never get very high, even though the perceived rate of exertion may be the same as what you would experience on land. The highest I was able to get mine was about 135-140 after a good, hard sprint. My max on land is around 180. Apparently the pressure of the water aids circulation, meaning your heart does not have to work as hard. The aerobic benefits of water running are thus inferior to the real thing. But hey, it's a cross-training activity. It's certainly better than doing nothing. My legs were noticeably sore when I got out of the pool, and I expect to be a little sore tomorrow. So at the very least, my muscles are getting a workout. I don't expect to have lost any fitness at all when I get back to running. I'm definitely going to do water running once a week, maybe on Sundays.
As far as training as concerned, I have to recognize the fact that my body is not used to even low mileage, like 35. I haven't done that sort of thing in years. I have to gradually ease into higher mileage. I've also started to think that 40-50 miles per week in the winter may be a better idea than 50-60. I don't want to burn myself out before the spring and end up with a catastrophic injury. This is especially important if my season goes into June, which I suspect it will. Assuming I qualify for the USATF National Club Track and Field Championship (4:05 needed), that will push my season well into July. That would mean that my outdoor season will have lasted ten or eleven weeks, assuming I do my first race in early April. I've never trained that hard for that long. I've really got to be careful. A single injury will take all the fun out of running.