Monday nights at 6:30, the Trek store in Blue Ash offers "Spin Cycle" classes. A couple of weeks ago, I had written a post on the Trek Store facebook page asking if the stores were doing any group trainer rides this winter. To my delight, a couple of weeks later, they said they were! I wasn't sure what to expect - video or instructor. Turns out it will probably be a little bit of both. Last night it was a video.
I arrived early because I had to buy a mat and I wasn't sure what traffic would be like. After paying way too much money for a mat, I started to set everything up: mat, trainer, block and bike. It took a couple of trips from the car. No one else was showing up and that made me a little nervous. I really wanted there to be multiple people for distraction. I wasn't sure how I was going to do. Cyclists in general are pretty intense. I haven't been working out that much...and there's that whole fractured rib thing...
It ended up being just me. There were 3 guys working in the store: Matt, Nick and the guy that was going to run the class. I think it might have been Keith or Kyle or something with a K, so I'll just call him K for now. K set up and we got started a little early.
We watched a DVD called Downward Spiral. It was an interval training video that had a little bit of humor to it. The structure was a warm-up, the set of intervals, a 5 minute recovery, another set of the intervals, then a cool-down–all totaling an hour. The DVD had words on the screen for instructions. Every time you heard a horse whinny, that meant you better look up at the screen for instruction. There was also a lot of banter about how hard it was going to be and you were going to feel like you were going to die. Kind of funny.
The warmup was a video of a single track extreme mountain bike course. It basically looked like a twist on a BMX track. We just spinned and watched. All of the video was from the perspective of a rider, with an on-head/helmet camera. The next part was pack racing. Here we had to sprint a few times to "catch up" to the pack thanks to the ass-hole that left a big gap. This was all the verbiage on screen. K mentioned he hated being that guy on the end of a pack that just kept getting yo-yo'd off. I can imagine...but I had no idea what he was talking about really.
That was the warm up. I was happy to notice that K was sweating just as much as me. I figured I would at least look like I was holding my own OK.
The intervals were the following with equal amounts of recovery after each: 2:00, 1:45, 1:30, 1:15, 1:00, :45, :30, :15. Each time the horse whinnied, "3-2-1-go!" would come up on the screen and K and I would change up a few gears and start working. I only went up two gears in the first set of intervals, thinking I was probably going to die. The video was part of the Tour de France, from Paris to Roubaix...which is on cobblestone! Nutso. On the recoveries, I wiped away sweat and drank.
I chatted with K a bunch about various cycling topics which was fun. He is a really nice guy, more granola than roadie. He is a mechanic and has been for 7 years I think he said, but leaves for Portland today to go to mechanic school for 3 weeks. He started out road biking and racing, but now does more mountain biking, specifically endurance racing. He does 24 hour races that are hundreds of miles long, on trails. Between each you can't do anything for a few weeks, so he has to carefully plan out the season and only gets to do about 3 races. Kind of comparable to marathons (for mortals, anyway). He ran in high school and college but now has too many issues from running, so bikes full time.
Towards the last interval of the first set, I tried to push harder. 45 seconds means sprint, right?! The 5 minute recovery was nice and allowed for my legs to stop burning and more chatting with K. Then it was time for set 2. Same stuff, but they thankfully changed up the scenery. The 7th interval flashed "uphill!!" on the screen. K was out of his saddle and I thought I might as well push it as well. He was encouraging and said nice job. Same happened for the 8th...towards the finish line 15 second sprint out of the saddle. Then the screen said something like "we don't think you pushed hard enough," and the countdown for 15 seconds began again. K laughed at my shock–he knew it was coming. Then... again...some smart ass comment appeared on the screen and we had to do it again...and again...and a fifth time before we were finally done. Whew! I made it though.
The cool-down part of the video showed guys on fixies doing all of their tricks, which made us talk about Danny MacAskill - the amazing street rider that does anything and everything with his bike. K used to ride a fixie and remembers building one for a guy before they were actually sold. Now you can actually buy a fixie in a bike shop, which is really funny. It is a new type of bike that is sold and marketed now. K is planning to sell his because he doesn't use it and has a hard time switching back and forth. It reminded me of the first time I went spinning and nearly ripped my legs off when I tried to coast.
So, all in all, it was a great experience. The best part is I was able to breathe hard without discomfort during the video. Afterwords, my rib was sore. But I took 800 mg of Advil when I got home and it was fine. I'm very happy about that! It was a big pain in the butt to load all of the gear into the car. But I think once a week is really worth it. I rode soooooooooooo much better and feel like I got a really great workout in! And, I can make it harder as I get better, simply by changing into bigger gears. For the next weeks, Matt is going to lead the classes and it might be video or he might lead it like a spinning class with music. That should be pretty awesome! I'm looking forward to the next classes and getting in better riding shape. I do hope more people start coming though.
No comments:
Post a Comment