NEWSFLASH! THIS IS HUGE! (5 months)

What a gorgeous day for deep water aerobics!  The water was sparkly and blue, the water temperature and air temperature  were perfect, the sun was warm, and it was a thrill to get back in the water.  My Y pool has been closed for the past 3 weeks for repairs, and I sorely missed my water class.  So for the past 3 weeks, I have gone to the gym 6x's/week.  I did a mixture of recumbent bicycle, treadmill, recumbent cross trainer, leg curls, leg extensions, leg press, and 33 seconds on the elliptical  for which I was obviously not ready.


To enter and exit the pool, the Y has this handy chair lift that has a chair that I sat in, and I would gently go down into the water in the chair.  I had been fearful of slipping on the steps and bending my knees, so this was great.  Then the process was reversed--I sat in the chair already in the water, and then I would be lifted out.  Yeah, it was embarassing, but hey, I got over it in a hurry.


After 3 weeks of working on the machines, I GOT OUT OF THE WATER BY MYSELF!!  The lifeguard had set the extremely heavy chair up for me, and I told him that I thought I could get in by myself, but I might need the chair to get out.  After doing my stair exercises, I decided to see how many I could climb.  Two stairs were the most I could do the last time I tried.  Breaking that water barrier where my strength was required to do the rest was amazingly easy to do.  There was no one to share my joy with except the lifeguard, and I think he was bugged that he had lugged that heavy chair and set it up for me for no reason.  

(Keep in mind these are not the steps built into the pool that are straight up and down.  They are stairs that descend at a slope with 2 handrails.)