Yes I Know It's a Boy's Name.
I completely forgot about the phenomena of Resolutors.
Resolutors are those folks that, post-or-during New Year’s, decide they are going to absolutely change their life. Usually this change of life decision is fueled by enough alcohol to create an everlasting flame; it doesn’t last past January and dies out.
That said, it does last DURING January and so, at 5:25, spin class was full. There was not a spare bike to be had, and yours truly had to camp out on the stairstepper.
Well, not yet.
Tomorrow starts official training, courtesy of the LA Fitness next to work. From here out I will be doing about 80% bike work (spinning and cardio bikes) and only about 20% of the “fun stuff” (swimming and so forth).
The last spinning class I took was two months ago. It featured a man who looked like a wiry Mr. Clean, sans-earring, and some truly impressive bike shorts. It also featured 3 or 4 gym rats, a couple of yoga moms, an elderly man who looked frail but, as he did not apparently sweat at all through the class, wasn’t, and myself.
Mr. Clean started the class with some vintage Madonna and I realized that he arrived in class in bike shoes and gear not having changed into them recently — he had in fact biked in from Seattle where he worked, to TEACH SPIN CLASS.
Ever been to a spin class? Here it is in a nutshell:
The instructor gets up on a bike in front of the class, facing you. Everyone else is facing the same way, at him/her. (For the sake of this post, we’ll use the neuter pronoun of him). The music starts, and he tells you what to do: how fast to spin, where to put your gears, whether or not you should be sitting or standing.
It’s that last part that is the core of the masochism that is spin class. I can handle shifting and making things harder to do, I can handle spinning faster or slower as permitted. But when they literally have you standing up and riding for 5 seconds, sitting down and riding for 5 seconds, and repeating — for two to five minutes — your knees, hamstrings, and quads inform you that they are not happy with you, right then. They do not wait until the next day to make their displeasure known.
This is likely because your back, chest, and arms (including forearms, biceps and triceps) are all queueing up to do that the next day. The day after spin class, you feel as though you have done something truly ill-advised to yourself.
I can’t wait.
For those of you who go to the LA Fitness in Bellevue, WA: I will be in the 5:30p Spin Class on Mondays and Wednesdays, and, schedule allowing, Fridays. You’re welcome to come and see me disintegrate.
No, not “the bar” as in where you go and get something to drink. The bar as in the expectations level. As it’s review time we’re expected to look at our work achievements and how we can do better in future; some of us treat our personal lives the same way. But biking 63 miles each day for 2 days straight is a bit much for someone who has done, at max, 12 miles in one day (and whose buttocks, if I don’t mind saying, felt like they wanted a divorce when I was done) (They didn’t leave, however, and so I feel like I won that round).
Next weekend starts the long bike rides of training, apparently with a 25-miler. For those of you keeping track, 25 miles from my house and you’d wind up in Downtown Seattle. 25 miles is a LONG WAY. 25 miles is exactly twice as far as I have ever biked, ever. Ergo, I will be searching for bike shorts (padding is NOT optional) and assorted comfy-gear in the next few days.
That said, I’d like to thank those who have donated thus far — it’s amazing how quickly that little “money thermometer” jumps! Thanks to KC, SMS, LC, and MT for your awesome support!
The one thing I really suck at is shifting.
When I was training for the triathlon last Summer, my sister (to be… she did say yes, so she’s stuck) coached me through the motions. “Left–down a couple! Right — up one!” If it hadn’t been for her I would’ve bike-walked the triathlon I swear.
This was naturally brought home as I took the bike out for its first run since September 20th– this morning.
If you live in the Seattle area — or any of its suburbs– you know that it is replete with hills. Big hills, little hills, hills that climb on rocks. Lots of hills. If you ride a bike, hills are not fun.
You see, there are two sets of gear wheels on a bike: little teeny wheels up to big wheels on the back-end, and but 3-changes-of-gears (wheel sizes) on the back-end. The general idea is to keep the chain line straight between these two sets of wheels whence you shift. However, this requires you bend your head down and actually LOOK at what you’re doing, which necessitates removing your line of sight from the road, which is where things like potholes and cars are.
It’s a lot like juggling projects, but with much more immediate results.
I rode six miles this morning, at an appalling time of about 30 minutes. I rode past a speedometer rated for cars (you know the sort– they tell you you’re going 40 –and flash — while you’re going past a church or somesuch) and it told me I was going 15mph. I paused to consider what “biting it” at 15mph would do to me on this bike.
Then I kept coasting. It wasn’t worth the worry, really.
Hello World, indeed. My first ever post, so the title is appropriate: the first task you get handed in absolutely any programming class (in my case, it’s been DOS, SQL, JavaScript, VB 6, VB.Net, C++) is to get the program you’ve just written, to write “Hello World”. We are apparently very concerned that the future programmers in the world should greet it properly.
This blog is initially going to be the base site for my training (and hopefully successful completion) of The Ride to Conquer Cancer. If you’d like to learn how you can donate to the cause, email me at bobbie dot conti at gmail dot com.
Bobbie Conti 