The Most Intense Sport of Them All: Another Attempt At Humor

     Let me tell you something.  When it comes to intense-sweaty-hardcore sports, football and wrestling might come to mind-- although I would add running, of course!  But you must be forgetting one, right?
     These athletes lurk in the swimming pools, swiftly making turns and keeping their eye fixed on you with bullet like precision.   They aren't swimmers-- if that's what you're thinking.  They are aqua joggers.  You might think of grandmas and the atrophied elderly when you think of aqua jogging.  But again, you would be wrong.  If these elderly athletes are really aqua jogging, I'd pit them against an MMA wrestler any day, because aqua jogging is a sport for the dedicated, the driven, and the downright hardcore.

Uh hu..this is what you thought of, isn't it?
(photo credit: auraleisure.com)

     So when I first started having pain in my hip (RELATED: Spiritual Warfare to the Max), I was ushered into the pool, an intimidating thing when I am far from a swimmer.  The first day, I tagged along with a teammate who'd been in the pool routine for a week already.  I pulled out my goggles and was about to hop in when I saw her grab a little foam belt and strap it around her waist.  That was the moment that I began to tremble in fear.  I was not swimming after all.  I was aqua jogging.  Timidly, I strapped my own belt on and edged into the pool, leaving my lonesome goggles behind (RELATED: How To Be Awkward in the Gym Locker Room).
     We both started our watches and I wiped the nervous sweat from my face and began.  Aqua jogging, my friends, is extreme.  I began to tread under the water, fixing my eyes ahead.  Before I knew it, my friend had reached the wall, and whipped around splashing water up in my eyes.  Frantically, I pulled my hands up and wiped my face.  But my hands were wet too!  I was panicking, and in all the wetness: I forgot to tread water!  It was my worst nightmare come true!  I blinked furiously to clear my vision, in fear of what I could come across without being able to see the lane in front of me.  A shark?  A barracuda?!  The possibilities where terrifyingly endless.  And just as all hope was lost, my friend looked over as blasted by in my right peripheral. "We're on," she said, as if the world wasn't ending.
     With that, the water began to stir up and I decided I had to move or else I was doomed to float in the middle of that pool forever.  Suddenly hit a roadblock.  I could touch the ground; I had made it 25 meters from the edge of the deep end and now, it wasn't deep anymore.  I began to panic again, and started looking for the closest area of escape.  There was a ladder not too far away, but how would I get there!?  What in the world could I do.  I watched as my friend approached the danger zone.  And then, as if it was nothing, she flashed a smile and just turned around.

See!  Doesn't she look hardcore?!
(photo credit: powerpoolswimspas.com)

     That was it?  It seemed so simple, yet so difficult.  In that moment it took to turn, I would have to stop treading and simple adjust my body 180 degrees.  I took a deep breath and began the maneuver.  Slowly I inched around, but suddenly: I found water splashing up in my face again.  I couldn't handle it;  the pressure and intensity were driving me mad.  What would happen to me?  Would some collegiate swimmer find me in the bottom of the pool years from now?  Would anyone know I was gone?  With that, I let my legs go dead and waited for the end.
   
And kept waiting...
         and waiting.....
         and waiting.......

      I waited until I realized I wasn't going to sink.  I was floating.  Suddenly, it dawned on me what that belt was for.  Maybe the lifeguard hadn't been staring at me for the reasons I thought.  Sheepishly, I started up the workout again, and-- moving 1 mile an hour-- made it back to the deep end.  I'd done another 25 meters in 30 seconds.  I was on a roll!
      And thus, the reputation stands: aqua jogging is the most intense and scary sport of them all.  If you think other swimmers aren't taking you seriously as an aqua jogger, you need to come to the pool where I am.  At my pool, they all stare at me in awe as I pull on "the golden belt," and quickly eat up the length of the deep end.  Ya...I told you it was intense.
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