{"id":42,"date":"2009-05-08T20:07:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-08T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/?p=42"},"modified":"2010-06-04T19:07:33","modified_gmt":"2010-06-04T19:07:33","slug":"humiliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2009\/05\/08\/humiliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Humiliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went for my first ever spin class last night. Keiser cycling<\/a>, it’s called. I figured I’d be fine: I ride fixed, FFS. Not only that but I ride fixed on the turbo, when I can’t be arsed going out. It’s just an exercise bike, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

I went because I had a swim lesson with my coach Zoe (whose website is still broken) immediately after the class, and she was taking the class, so I figured what the hell. Turned up, having ridden there (fixed, natch) at a sprint because I was running late, found a few people already sitting on the machines pushing the pedals round. None of them gave the outward appearance of being super-fit. One guy looked about 65. They asked if I’d done it before. No, I told them.<\/p>\n

“You’ve picked the wrong class then,” they chortled. “This is the hard one!”<\/p>\n

That’s just great.<\/p>\n

It took some fiddling to get the bike set-up acceptable (not right, just acceptable), which was watched with some amusement by the two guys either side of me (the old guy and a guy who looked about 50). I tried explaining that I am used to riding real bikes. They asked if I race. I mentioned triathlon, muttering a bit.<\/p>\n

I really shouldn’t have done. They made a big deal about this. All of a sudden I was supposed to breeze through this airily, like a dandelion clock on a sunny summer’s day.<\/p>\n

The warm-up was fairly hard. Halfway through the session I’d drunk nearly all my water and it had sweated out into a nasty puddle on the floor underneath me. The gents flanking me were merrily having a conversation over my labouring back, neither of them having so much as broken a sweat, while Zoe yelled at us to go faster and faster in bigger and bigger gears.<\/p>\n

“Up two! Minimum 16! 110 – 120! Three… two… one… go!”<\/p>\n

The man on my right was singing along to the music.<\/p>\n

He was singing along<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It was just sickening.<\/p>\n

The pair of them kept offering me a tissue to wipe off the sweat, and would lean over to peer at the electronic display on my cycle every now and again. If I wasn’t up to speed or had failed to select a high enough gear they would mercilessly point this out, as if I were cheating or something. The old bloke, having ascertained that I was wearing an HRM, occasionally asked in a conversational manner how my heart rate was doing.<\/p>\n

Come the end my ladybits were rubbed raw from the dodgy saddle and I felt the same way I imagine a Fremen would if he tried to run 10k over dunes in a stillsuit at a 20 minute pace. Climbing into the pool with my core tempature through the roof felt like plunging into the Weddell Sea<\/a>. Half of me was worrying about leopard seals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hmm. I wonder if there are any places left for Monday’s class. The one that’s on just before the running club Zoe thinks I should attend.<\/p>\n

She’s a sadistic minx when she knows you can take it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went for my first ever spin class last night. Keiser cycling, it’s called. I figured I’d be fine: I ride fixed, FFS. Not only that but I ride fixed on the turbo, when I can’t be arsed going out. It’s just an exercise bike, right? Wrong. I went because I had a swim lesson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,34],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-training","tag-training"],"yoast_head":"\nHumiliation ~ Singularity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2009\/05\/08\/humiliation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Humiliation ~ Singularity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I went for my first ever spin class last night. Keiser cycling, it’s called. I figured I’d be fine: I ride fixed, FFS. 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