Spinning not Cruising

beachbikes.com

Sunday morning at 9:00 I drug my rear end out of bed and into a spinning class. Now, this is not to be confused with me riding my beach cruiser around town in the summer. That is lazy and fun. This was....scary! I have heard the stories about people not being able to finish a class, about instructors yelling at "riders", about how extremely exhausted you get. But, I am in pretty good shape these days so thought I'd give it a go. At first I thought I'd die. My thigh muscles were screaming in pain. When the instructor yelled, "Crank it up", meaning add more resistance and turn that red knob, I yelled, "No!" which made the woman next to me burst into laughter but I could see her think, "Hey, I don't have to do what this chick is telling me," which is the KEY to these classes. I have learned, at along last, to make these classes work for me so I do what works for my fitness level not his or hers. So, I slowly cranked the resistance up and sometimes not at all. And, after about 10 minutes, to my surprise, my legs warmed up and I really, really enjoyed the class. Up and down we went over the hills and through the valleys. Well, not really but I kept closing my eyes and imaging myself back on the Golden Gate Bridge when Ken and I rode across on Blazing Saddles bikes! Yes, it was completely exhausting and my face was as red as a ripe tomato when I finally hopped off the bike and I drained a huge bottle of water, but I was invigorated! I will definitely take another spinning class in the near future.