Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Today's spin session featured 15 to 20 minute seated steady intervals with 5-minute climbs in between. The seated steady intervals were to have a cadence of 90 and we were to pick a resistance level that was challenging but that we could sustain for the duration. Then the climbs were to be 3 to 4 notches about that. Scott and Dan were hooked up to the cool new Suunto monitoring system, so we could see their heart rates and intensity levels at all times.

I picked level 10 for my seated intervals. It seemed reasonably challenging to keep the cadence at 90 but I noticed that my heart rate wasn't nearly as high as Scott's or Dan's. The room was on the warm side but I'm very used to a hot spin class since Chris Griffin--my Equinox spin class guru--likes to keep the spin room really warm for his sessions. No AC and usually no fans either. We call it Bikram Spin Class. Definitely an acquired taste--and there's no acquiring Chris's musical taste, in my opinion--but his classes are the absolute toughest so Stuart and I are regulars. Anyway, I was trying to convince myself that my heart rate wasn't as high as Scott's or Dan's because I'm more acclimated to the heat, but I think this was bs. Scott confirmed my suspicions when he quizzed us about our heart rates and I had to confess that mine was easily a good ten fewer per minute than his at any given moment. So next spin I'll ratchet it up to 11 or 12 and see how it goes. I did go to 15 for the climbs, but maybe I should go a notch higher there, too.

I was tempted to do the core work after the spin but the treadmill called. I run every day and I really wanted to knock out my run. This new FTE schedule is causing trouble on my home front. Stuart, who is not a morning person, has to get Kieran ready for school and take him to school solo--something we always used to do together. And Kieran had a melt-down one day last week when he realized that he hadn't seen me all day; I'd left before he woke up, of course, and then an author reading and dinner kept me out until 11:00. So the last thing I want to do is get home from work and announce it's time for my run. I'm already looking forward to the warmer weather which will mean not just riding in the park but also getting home by 7:30 or so and not heading straight to work from Chelsea Piers. It's funny that what I thought would be toughest about joining FTE in the morning (getting up so early, getting down to CP) is already not so tough, but these other factors that I hadn't considered are--and I'm not sure they'll get better with time.