Saturday, August 27, 2005

spin class (A little late in posting)

I went to my first spin class three weeks ago.
Holy crap.
Wait, that doesn't quite emphasize it properly.
HOLY CRAP.
Much better.

The longest I've ever biked continuously, is probably somewhere around 50+ miles. What I never really thought of though, is that I'm not actually pedaling the entire time. There's a definite measurable amount of time that is spent costing.
Enter spin class. One hour. Pedaling the entire time. Basically, its the equivalent of going up an hour long hill.

I got to the class a couple minutes late, so I just kind of jumped on one of the bikes, and started pedaling along. (Half of the machines even SPD pedals on them!) The entire idea of spinning is very simple, and I never thought I'd see the point of needing an instructor, since you could do the same by yourself. The instructors are really motivational though, and when class is going on, they have control over the music in the gym. They each have a CD mix with different beat techno songs that are coordinated with their work outs. They tell you when to pick up the gear, and when to stand up. They really get you going. One of the neat things about it, is that no one gets left behind. (Obviously, since you're not going anywhere!) This allows all skill levels to join in. She'll tell you when what level of resistance you should be pedaling with, on a scale of 1 to 10, but that's relative for each person. There aren't actually numbers on the tensioner of the machine, though, so its up to you to decide how hard you want to go. Since you can't possibly know what other people are set at, there's no way of judging yourself against others, so no one has to be left with feeling inferior.

By the time I was done with the first class, I had a puddle, and I mean a puddle, under my bike. I was dripping about a drop ever second for the last half of the class. Petty nasty, but pretty sweet at the same time.

Best of all, unlimited spin and and yoga is included with my climbing membership at the gym Pipeworks Climbing gym

I've gone a couple of times since then and plan on doing it once a week. I had to skip it this week; I ended up working late the day I planned on going. The rest of week it didn't mesh well with my triathlon taper. (Actually, I guess "taper" isn't proper word since it insinuates some sort of training before hand. "Learning how to swim", is probably a more appropiate word.

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