FlyWheel and Me

Last night was my first Fly Wheel class and let me say "Fly Wheel riding is a combination of fun and pain". The memory fades over time and recollects only the bright spots from our past. I guess this is why I remember only the fun parts from my cycling classes' years ago at the Y. That and the fact, I hadn't been on a bike of any time in 9 months. I am pretty sure; I wasn't going to be tearing up any records during this training session.

Around 7pm, they let us into the training room and I selected my bike. One difference that I quickly noticed, everyone wears cycling shoes so we are all clipped into our bikes. This part I like. I get a much better effort from the ride.

After some introductions, the lights go down, the score board comes on and our instructor rolls right into the workout.

5 minutes in and I am already breathing hard. Not mention, I am starting to sweat. No, I mean really sweat. Bubbles of perspiration cover my head and neck. She tells us to turn the torque up by 2. Ugh, I was struggling at the current setting. Then, she tells us to push the RPM up to 75. I tell my quads to go faster, but they refuse.

We finish this first hill section and she tells us that this was the easy hill. Fantastic, I am "so" looking forward to others. Next, we do an interval session of 100+ RPM for anywhere from 15 seconds to 1 minute.

The perspiration is now bubbling up on my arms. My towel is considerably wetter than when we started and my water bottle is nearly ½ empty.

I am feeling so gassed at this point and beginning to wonder was this a 45 minute or an hour long class. I am suddenly hoping, praying this is the 45 minute class.

We are back on the hills, then another interval session.

I

lose all track of time. All I really know is that my shirt is totally soaked and sweat continues to drip from my arms and head. I didn't sweat this much during the dog days of summer.

Then, she tells us to pull out these two long rods. Later, I learn one is 2 pounds and the other is 4 pounds. I miss the instruction that we can use either one or the other or both. I simply see her using both and follow suit. Maybe, we are two minutes in to the routine and my arms are burning and my deltoids are on fire.

She is making it look easy and I am just wondering can we go back to me suffering with some hard riding.

We finish up the strength slash core session and she puts us through one more hard session before we finish.

My legs are totally fried. Before we get off the bike, we run through some stretching routines. Our instructor then goes into covering what it means if you would like to join the "Fly Wheel" experience. Much like a marathon, don't ask me if I want to do another one right after I have just crossed the finish line. Give me a day or two to think about it.

Now, the lights are up. I look around the room. The class lasted maybe 50 minutes but everyone looks whipped. Billy has left a pool of sweat on the floor by his machine. Personally, in 50 minutes I soaked down an entire

20 oz. bottle of H20.

Man, I had forgotten how much fun one of these cycling classes can be. I am definitely thinking about adding it as an evening workout.

Big thanks to Chris for inviting up me to join his cycling class. Even with the pain, I definitely had a good time.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner