You may recall that about a month ago, I discussed having taken a deep water running (aka aqua jogging) class, and how fun it would be to go deep water running over at Sandy Point State Park.
Well, I did it.
I went out to Aardvark Swim yesterday and bought a deep water running belt, and then went out to Sandy Point today to give it all a spin. Unfortunately, the verdict ended up being that while this sounded like a great idea on paper, it didn’t work out quite as well in real life. That’s not to say that I didn’t get a good (enough) workout, though. I did get to work my arms quite a bit. The problem is that the water wasn’t quite as deep as I thought. Last year, I went there some time in August, and I remember not being able to touch bottom when I was out as far as the white buoys. This time, either I had a growth spurt (unlikely), or my recent weight loss allowed me to sink further (plausible but also unlikely), but I could touch bottom almost the entire time today. And for deep water running, you want to be in a place where you can’t touch bottom so that you have room to make the full leg movements. If you can firmly stand on the bottom, you’re not in deep enough water. This isn’t to say I didn’t try, though. I tried pulling my legs up and doing the movements short-legged, but I inevitably would end up rolling forward onto my front, and the idea with deep water running is to stay vertical.
I have a feeling that in order to get into water that is sufficiently deep, I would have to go well past the buoys. I would guesstimate that the buoys were about 150 feet or so off the beach. I only felt comfortable going out as far as the buoys, since beyond the buoys, there are two things that are bad for swimmers. First, beyond the buoys but not too far off is where people with jet skis play with their jet skis. And then a bit further than that, there’s a shipping channel leading to the Port of Baltimore. I have always seen a ship going by whenever I’ve been to Sandy Point, and today was no exception. In fact, I saw two. I saw a container ship heading in towards Baltimore, and then I also saw the Carnival Pride heading out from Baltimore, presumably setting off on one of the seven-day cruises that leave from Baltimore. And as I mentioned before, I want to stay well clear of that shipping channel, because I don’t particularly want to get an up-close tour of a ship’s propellers while they’re in the water and running. Not my idea of fun.
But I did get a good arm workout, and I’m still feeling the post-workout buzz from that. And considering that this replaced a lap swimming session, I’m glad that can still consider this a successful workout, even if I’m most likely never going to repeat it. And at least we know that my deep water running belt fits well, and works well for what I’m using it for. Next time I use it, however, it will be in a swimming pool, and not in the Chesapeake Bay.