Numbers Talk

The last time I took on one of The Man’s spinning class I was humbled dearly. Since then, I’ve put in a lot of time in the saddle, or as he once said, TITS. I’ve suffered a considerable amount of aches and pains, fixed A LOT of flat tires, and beat myself up mentally. And for what?

Months later, I walked into the cycling studio for not one but two hours of spinning. I brought Ms. G (my Forerunner 410) along for her to provide me with constant input, and hopefully encouragement, as the class went on. With a simple swipe-like kiss of the two ANT+ devices (bike & watch) the two were in synch and I had a read on all my numbers: HR, MHR%, cadence, elapsed time, and distance covered. It was a thing of beauty.

For once, I was not alone while getting in my TITS. The room was filled with people. Even better, there was cool music to distract and motivate. And all-the-while The Man was painting a picture of beautiful hills. Yes, I’m pretty sure he described them as beautiful (though that may not have been his exact word of choice). He took us up for a 5 minute climb, let us spin easy (with a high cadence) for a 60-75 second recovery, and then had us crank up the resistance as we continued to descend. Then we did again, a few more times before cranking out the speed intervals.

And that was just the first of the two classes.

By the end of the 2nd hour, I’d managed to crank out 40 miles worth of spinning. The overall pace was 21.0 mph.

Given the intensity of the workout, I called it better than planned (even though I’d planned on 50-60 miles of road cycling).

After all, I’m tapering. Plus, I totally made up my training schedule myself. The numbers have spoken and they’ve said for me to take Sunday off and rest.