Water Running

I have returned to running! Okay, not really. It's actually running in the water, but that's pretty close, right?
I haven't done water running for years, and last time I did it I could actually touch bottom because the pool was so shallow.
To help me with my rehab, a friend lent me a flotation belt to use for water running, which I fastened to my waist and set up right underneath the starting block.
On your marks...get set...don't go!
Man, was I slow. I went with a friend, which was great as I might not have dragged myself out to the pool without her encouragement. And as she lapped me again and again, I ever so slowly "ran" through the water. Geez, I thought I was slow at that land running stuff. I had it easy, running above the water mark.
After two laps of painfully slow "running" I gave up and went to kicking rather than running. Easier, but a few laps later my ankle started to ache a bit.
So I went to 'arms only' front crawl with the floatie belt on my feet. Geez, that's hard. I have always struggled with the highly sophisticated breathing/head turning pattern required for the front crawl. So as I result I would breathe in water and then be too flustered to breathe out at the right time, only to breathe out when I was supposed to breathe in and...well...let's just say I finished off the 100m of that as fast as I could and decided to return to water running. Slow, but preferable.
I'm hoping to be back on the roads shortly. I'm happy to report that I am still seeing improvements every day and I'm looking forward to getting back out there.