Geez, the wwwwwater wwwas a bbbit ccccold....

Time   10am
Date   18.4.11
Place  Big Pool, Albany Creek Aquatic Leisure Centre


Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this pool is bloody cold!!!!!  It's raining, it's 22 degrees outside, and I'm running around in board shorts and top heading for my first hydrotherapy program.  I must be NUTS.


I'm told by the fit young things at the front counter that the hydrotherapy pool is being used for the Under 3's Learn to Swim class, and that for today, it'll have to be the big pool.


I clutch two pages of exercises safely stored in a plastic sleeve.


I look around at the fit and trim swimmers ploughing up and down with seemingly no effort.  With a gentle word, the swimming coach guides me towards the lane at the far side of the pool, which is thankfully empty.


I head for the shallow end, deciding that to wave my backside to world by going down the pool stairs will be less than graceful.  I gingerly insert lower half and gathp with the cold... they said the water was 27 degrees... doesn't bloody feel like that to me :(  But I bravely sally forth into the depths and get myself wet.


With unwilling arms and legs resisting me at every turn, I valiantly work my way through my two pages, feeling the depths of my body slowly recogise the word "activity" again.  What the hell is going on here, it asks... how dare you throw me into cold water and ask me to do this stuff?  However, I persist... 


I rest carefully if I feel my heart beating too hard.  Once or twice I feel the dreaded giddiness come back, and I stop completely and just hang there, praying for it to stop.  I don't want my own heart to sabotage my comeback from the desert of bigness.  I will hang on, I will not have another angina attack, I will not die ... I just will not have it!!


And damn it, I succeed!!!  I complete the required 3 sets of 10 of each exercise.


At the end, I smile radiantly at myself on the inside, wallowing gently in the shallow end like a satisfied humpback after a feed of krill, basking in the knowledge that I have taken that vital first step.


But geeeezzzzz, that wwwaaater wwwas a bbbbit bbbbloooody ccccold....