So last Friday I almost died. My wife E.A. has been going to spin class for several months now. She seems to like it and has made a point of staying committed to it. I run but have always heard that these spin classes are a good source of cross-training. So at some point I commented that I might like to try to go to a class with her. We kind of danced around me going for about a month because our children were on break and I traveled a lot this summer. But last Friday, with the boys in school, I joined E.A. at Krank Fitness just a few blocks from here.
Part of me was worried because summer has thrown my fitness regimen off a bit. Then there was another part of me that was not too concerned because I have been a runner since I was in high school. Why would I think that I would not have any trouble with a spin class? Because there’s a seat! In my arrogance, I thought, “If I could sit down while I was running, I could go twice as far and twice as fast.” This was the first of many stupid thoughts that traversed my mind on this fateful morning.
Before we started, I got on the stationary bike and sort of pedaled a little bit to get used to it. I could tell that this exercise was going to tax some muscles that didn’t normally get used, but I was not worried. The whole point was to work on some muscles that didn’t get as much attention while running. So we begin our 30 minute spin session which was to be followed by 30 minutes of strength training. The music is thumping and our instructor is telling us to speed up, get out of the saddle, increase the resistance on the bike, lower it, go up and down and back, up and down and back. And it’s tough.