Tuesday morning @ BSC DTX

Today was my first day back from the Thanksgiving holiday.  I ran 3 x times in Tallahassee, but that was still not enough to keep me in stride with my spin workouts.

Meredith showed up early at the gym to make us all look bad, and my gym routine was a little thwarted as I had to walk back to work to grab my shoes and shaving stuff.

Me, strapping in my spin shoes

Class was slated for a full 55 minutes and I was wiped out.  It felt like Meredith stuck around over the holiday, un-phased from the eating holiday, and punished me as soon as I got back.  I managed to weather the climb (my knees felt wobbly), I emptied my water bottle, and I survived my first day back.  The tricep workouts (which she indicated may not comply with the club policy, but she’s a lawyer: I’m sure she can handle it), even without weights, seemed to exhaust me.

It’s time to get back in shape; this is how it starts.

Thursday morning @ BSC Copley

BSC Copley is located close to my work, so my morning gym routine involves packing all of my clothes, my suit, sandwich, apple, water bottle, etc., strapping on the iphone headphones, and asking (begging?) Siri to play the next episode of the Stuff You Should Know podcast (this week's was on Air Force One: awesome) as I walk.  As I write that it sounds a little exhausting but it's become second nature since I realized that I like to get my workout over with at the beginning of the day.  Also it makes the rest of my day that much better: I have more energy and my brain is already fired up for dealing with them pesky state regulators.

Meredith's class this morning (11/17) was just such a spark.  I appreciate how she's brought some of the Reboot class tactics (crunches and tricep exercises) to her other classes.

When I first contemplated writing this blog, one of the posts I had in mind discussed Meredith's playing of Dream On by Aerosmith.  It's probably the most exhausting (read: rewarding) way to end spin class that I've been a part of thus far.  The meat and potatoes of the ride are sprints (6 in total I think; 5 all in the last 1:45) done at very high resistance, in position 3.  Think of the little guitar pulses that happen after the lyrics "... the good lord-a take me away" - that's when they occur.  I end up naturally isolating my torso / hips while we crush out the sprints, which are about 8 seconds long.

Back in April I took her class at BSC Government Center and I recorded my heart rate.  You can see my effort in the following graph:

I don't recall the rest of the class but here I've isolated my heart rate during the sprints in Dream On - it was the last section of class (top-right of the above):

I hope to post more of these heart rate graphs and correlate them with the various exercises we do during class in the future.  For instance, you can see around the 10-min mark that we were sprinting (180 bpms) and that my average heart rate crept up slowly throughout the class (I believe the mean was 157).

I'll be posting about my double-header last Friday in a bit; I'm on Thanksgiving vacation right now in Florida and taking it a little easy (hence the light spin schedule on your right).

Tuesday morning @ BSC DTX

Meredith packed another class full today, which included my former coworker Rachel (@creativeactuary) along with most of what I’ve seen as The Regulars there.  Last week I rode down the elevator after class with just one Regular, an older gentleman who usually sits at about the centroid of the room of bikes.  “Meredith’s been kicking my ass for a few months now; I’m hooked.”  This is a standard reaction: spinning does not discriminate on age or gender when it comes to working out, and Meredith is a prime conduit for the experience.

Today’s particular ass-kicker, if you were honest with yourself, was to Ke$ha’s Tik Tok.  The honesty here is key since spinning is an at-your-own pace sort of exercise.  There is plenty of encouragement from the other group members and from fierce instructors like Meredith, but you could go through class just piddling around for 45 minutes if you’d like.  I don’t like, though.

On Tik Tok, we spun at a medium-high resistance, with wicked intense accelerations in the saddle during the choruses followed by brief stints in position 3.  I forgot my bottle of water today (big mistake) and I was punished for it.  Victory was claimed, though, at the end of the routine: I walked out energized for quite a long day.

Thursday morning @ BSC Copley

I got to the gym a little earlier than usual to do some bicep and back workouts.  Ever since recycle has got me lifting weights while spinning, I’ve decided that I could definitely afford to be a little stronger here.

Meredith teaches on Thursday mornings, and the class is completely full (with waiting list) because these folks know what’s good for them.  Some familiar songs popped up during the spin class, including Womanizer (just now finding out that this is by Britney …) which, when taught by Meredith, is like your bike just transmogrified into an obstacle course.  We’re working triceps with upper-body pushups on the handlebars, we’re sprinting in positions 2 and 3 (and 1, if you’ve got the energy), we’re crunching quickly for an ab workout.  It’s all there.  And hardly anyone can keep up.

I drank 20 oz of water prior to class, 20 during class, and I’ve already finished the next 20 at work.  Were the Mrs. and I to be here during the Thanksgiving week (Meredith says she is teaching a ton in town), I’d probably try to OD on this class before OD’ing on Turkey and mom’s stuffing, but we’ll be back at home.

Tuesday morning @ BSC DTX

I felt like Meredith was on a mission to punish me for spinning too much.  After last night’s class I was un peu fatigué but one goal I have is to continue to push myself a little harder each week, lest I get complacent or lackadaisical.

So with the exception of a couple of moderate climbs we were flying at low-medium resistance the whole time, all over the bike.  I didn’t make it through the MJ song, but I gave it my best at the time.

I snapped a couple of shots of the bikes at BSC DTX (I will go more in depth into various cycles eventually on the blog) so you can see what we’re working with:

And here is the cycling studio from the outside:

All photos I post will be collected on the photo page for a cumulative gallery of spinning.

My legs feel pretty much wasted away about now, though this is my preference as my job involves sitting at a desk or a conference table most of the day.

Thursday morning @ BSC Copley

I had a windy walk to this gym, conveniently located a block from my office, and I got there just in time to set my Full Load of stuff in a locker and get to the studio.  Meredith warmed us up quickly with Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition and then we quickly hit some sprints, up-hill with Aerosmith.  Not the easiest start to my day.

I was particularly crushing Lady Gaga’s You and I (I’d link the video but it’s raunchy, and my grandmother reads this blog).  The pace is moderate-fast, and Meredith demands a fairly high resistance.  I went probably a little higher than I was comfortable with, and challenged myself to keep the pace as long as possible.  I was in the front row and I grimaced a lot into the mirror.

I’m taking the day off exercising tomorrow since I’m out watching the Seminoles play BC tonight here in Boston and friends are in town, etc.

Tuesday morning @ Boston Sports Club (BSC) Downtown Crossing (DTX)

I walked from my apt to BSC DTX, getting there at around 6 to secure a front-row bike.  Ever since Meredith started teaching on Tuesday at 6:30 here, the class has been packed, maybe one or two of the 25 bikes left open.  The studio is completely walled with mirrors, crucial in my opinion, and the dude next to me was really into it: vocal grunts, hoots, and all.

Meredith – her name will come up a lot I’m guessing - taught for 50 minutes this morning and I worked pretty hard.  I don’t like to set the bar low or anything, but working ‘pretty hard’ this morning is actually exceeding expectations given the volume of the blood punch I drank at our Halloween gathering last night.  Fifty minutes is a little longer than the standard BSC spin class, which I’m told is a legacy from the instructor prior to Meredith who would teach for an hour.

Solid start to a Tuesday.