Thursday morning @ Recycle

I took my first class with Rachele this morning in the south end.  The studio dubs it the Reascend class implying: hills, hills, hills.  Right from the start Rachele described how, in a full pedal stroke, the heel should almost lead our downstroke.  I find this true especially at higher resistances, which is exactly where we were going.  This also takes me back to one of my first spinning memories over at BSC Fenway, when a cyclist attending the class (who spends a lot of time cycling outside) was giving me some pointers.  Back then (3 years ago?) I had issues with my calves cramping up, and this guy told me that a proper pedal stroke may fix the issue.  The stroke as he described it will feel almost as though you’re able to scrape the ground from heel-to-toe as you come around (he said: “like scraping shit off the bottom of your shoe” … kind of silly, but hey – I remember it now still).  This is what I think Rachele was getting at as well.

So … we climbed a ton of hills, most pretty heavy, and the music was all new to me (forgive me for no links) and I loved it.  The class – to my distinct surprise – also flew by!  I imagined a class focused around hills would actually start to lose its spark but Rachele is incredibly motivating and it’s clear that she’s up there busting her ass at least as hard as we were.

We spent some time crouched really far over, such that our elbows were sitting on the cross bar and our hands grabbing the center handlebar set.  A little uncomfortable for me, but I think this just means I need to stretch more.  Also it was clear that in this position I was isolating a set of muscles that don’t usually get that kind of attention (it almost felt like inner-thigh muscles).

Fantastic workout!  The last thing I wanted to do was leave … because overnight it got to be 20 degrees and windy.  #bostonwinter