So I got to chill at the beach this weekend. I didn't know, necessarily, when I went how long I would be gone. My aunt needed a few days out, and she wanted to be gone until Sunday. We left Friday morning and picked her up (she lives about a 40 minute drive away), then headed straight down.
We started at the water park. Now, my favorite attraction at the water park is the lazy river. The thing that you must understand about the lazy river is, for me, it's anything but lazy. I don't get to drift slowly along the "river", lounging in an over-sized inner tube. I have to swim, walk, and/or run the length of it, because my lovely child refuses to just relax and be lazy. My job is to chase her through the pool, generally submerged up to my neck in the 3 feet deep water, somewhere between swimming and walking in a lunge. The pool is around 2,000 feet long, so three laps means I've swum/walked/whatever at least a mile, right?
I'm not so good in the "tadpole" area. I might lounge in a chair or sit in the shallow water, but mostly because the water IS shallow, and it's really a little kiddie area. The water is deep enough in places that I can lay on my stomach (head up and out of the water) and float on top while I pull myself along with my arms (getting some upper body strength exercises in, right?) Of course, this can only be done in low crowds (which, thankfully, is pretty much what we had this weekend.)
The "Skull Island" area is another hot spot that we love. It's a large pool that averages about 2.5 feet in depth. There is a slide and a large area next to the slide that remains largely unpopulated. It's a great area to swim (plus this is mostly where my child taught herself how to swim). The middle has some stuff that sprays water about and tends to be where the kids and doting/helicopter parents stay. On the other side of that, there is now a play area just off the pool. There is a slide, water that sprays everywhere (and the kids can go up and spray water on people and such) and a dunk tank. There's also some room on the other side of it with nothing to attract people, so they tend to stay away from it, providing another spot you can do a little swimming.
The zoom flume (mat slides) require a hike uphill at a fairly steep but variable slope...but the truly steep slope is to get to the family raft ride. My child RUNS up while I walk as fast as I can, on my toes, panting and heart hammering. It's a 60' tall tower, and the ramp runs the length of the speed slide that comes down from the top of the tower, plus there's a bunch of stairs to get to the top platform.
The wave pool provides exercise from trying to stay in one place during the waves to swimming about between wave sessions. (Since, you know, the wave pool pretty much clears out as soon as the waves stop.)
All that, for two days, plus a few walks on the beach and (where possible) not taking the closest parking space to the building.
Now, of course, I didn't have a pedometer, so I don't have a step count. Not that I would have trusted the pedometer to survive the water. But, how do you translate that activity to the goal? Can it be translated, or should it be translated?
That's the same trail my thoughts go down when I start thinking of things I'd like to do...like...yoga...or fluidity. Of course...using My Personal Trainer on the DS does translate activity entered into mileage. Is that fair? Hrm...What do you think?
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