Spinning

Last week, I decided I should go to spinning and miraculously, I did! It was interesting. Not the sure death I was expecting, but nowhere near the thrill of when I went to spinning whilst in shape (and at the best gym ever-- the Courthouse). At this mega gym, I'm paranoid about not getting a bike, so naturally I showed up 37 minutes early. There was no sign up or anything so I poked my head in the spinning room, and of course there were about 50 lonely bikes without a soul claiming one of them. So I dilly dallied... went to the bathroom... checked my phone... deleted old texts... and then finally decided just to go wait it out on the bike. So, for 30 minutes before the torture began, I pedaled ... leisurely. In my cardiovascular state, even a leisurely pedal renders great amounts of perspiration an fatigue. When people started trickling in 3 minutes before the class started I was on my way to winded and sweating buckets already.

The instructor came in and we started warming up (pah! I was already sweltering). She decided she wanted to learn everyone's names (there were about 12 people there-- glad I got there early... psh). She heard my name as KristinE and I wasn't going to waste more of my breath trying to correct her.

We spun. We climbed "hills" we sprinted, we stood up we "hovered" we jumped... it was so hard. I totally pansy'd on a lot of it, I won't lie. I put forth genuine effort and it was reflected in my heart rate that we checked 3 times over the course of an hour. Each time I was at 180 beats/min. I feel like that's physiologically unhealthy, but I've never been a heart rate enthusiast during exercise, something I'm slightly considering changing.

At one point as I was huffing and puffing along, the instructor got off her bike in the front of the room and walked over to me. I was focused on staying upright so I didn't notice until she was right in front of me. She covered her microphone and asked: "KristinE, ...are you okay?" I looked at her-- half bewildered, half cross eyed and could only manage to nod my head 'yes' too enthusiastically and showered her in my sweat. Whoopsie.

There was one 'activity' where for 15 seconds one person would sprint while everyone else in the class maintained a non-sprint cadence and cheered the sprinter on. I wanted to die. It's one thing to go through this experience in the public setting of a group fitness class, but it's another to have that public setting LOOK AT YOU while you're suffering. It was mortifying and I was sure that if I didn't die from cardiac fatigue, then I'd surely keel over from sheer embarrassment.

Finally the class ended and I essentially fell off my bike. It was awkward. I felt very accomplished for finishing it, but really disappointed, too. I used to LOVE spinning and it would be my second or third workout of the day. Now it's all I can do to not only motivate myself to go, but to BARELY stay on the bike the whole time. I know I have a lot of work to do... and it's daunting.

I elliptical/biked the next day, then swam before work the day after that. (The chlorine does something to my nose-- I think it's like an allergy... I sneeze ALL day, and by the end of the day my nose is COMPLETELY occluded. It's hard to swallow.. hard to talk... very uncomfortable.) Anyway-- took yesterday off mostly because I didn't want to get up at 3:30am again to go before work.

I span? spun? spinned? whatever today and yesterday. It's very true that the instructor plays such a huge role in the experience. I have come close to enjoying spinning again. We'll see how it develops. I work the next three days so I won't get to another class, but will swim and perhaps venture back into lifting again before work. We'll see. One day at a time.