sweating with the oldies

Leading up to my instructor training for spin class early next month I figured it would be wise to actually take a class or two to familairize myself with the whole scene. On Friday, Marcy and I were to spend the day Christmas shopping so I headed down for the 6am class that Marcy usually takes. I'd say that I was the youngest by at least 15 years but it was a pretty friendly bunch. Unfortunately for me though was that Marcy had apparently talked me up a bit with the group so they were expecting something pretty special from me. I had much lower expectations since this was my first class in probably 5 years and I have done exactly zero high intensity training in the last couple of months and spin classes are all about intensity.

After about 5 minutes of easy spinning and trying to get the bike set up properly we launched into our first of about 5000 interval sessions for the 1 hr class. This particular class consisted of mostly climbing intervals with a few sprint types thrown in for good measure. Within about 10 minutes I knew I was in trouble. The high intensity efforts were a serious tax to the system but with my build up by Marcy I couldn't exactly back off and show the kind of wuss that I was so I soldiered on and made it through the class only coming close to blacking out once (for honest and for true) and having both of my calves cramp in the final two sprints.

I have to admit that those old coots really know how to dish out a hurting and while I know (hope) I could kick their wrinkled up old butts out on the road, they seriously put the wood to me during the class.

I look forward to more classes in the future and hopefully I'll eventually be able to keep up with the blue hairs.