Well today I was humbled....then I got over it!

I've been fighting some cruddy rhino-virus since Monday night; it's been kicking my ass. Well today I decided to just go sweat it all off at the gym in one of my favorite lunchtime spin classes.

Our local gym is still suffering from the January effect....tons of people still packing in every class, packing the weight room, packing it in on the cardio machines. Yes I am happy so many want to be so fit....it just means I need to get there early for class and ask to work in a lot in the weight room....it's a good thing, I get it.

Luckily, a buddy saved me a bike 'cause I was running late. I love the spin bikes in our gym, they are these very cool looking Keisers. They synch up to a heart rate monitor, they have great digital readouts of cadence and gear settings, and the fit on the bike is great.



I am used to specific gear settings for most of the workouts that curvilicious instructor gal puts us through, usually in the high double digit settings.

Well imagine my surprise when I start warming up to find that I'm struggling on settings of 5, 6, & 7! I am working like a dog to keep a 70-80 cadence at a setting of 10! I am normally cooling down on a 10!

I figure this friggin rhino-virus has stolen all my mojo, because my heart rate is up at normal 80-95% levels at these settings.

I feel like a wuss!

But I plod along, hoping none of the regulars steal glances at my girly-man settings, because I am giving it all I've got at settings I think should be for used for first time spinners.

Add to that, curvilicious instructor is hitting my all time favorite tunes and I'm keeping up, but wondering if I've lost all my credibility with my peers.

Anyway, I had a great workout. And that's why I like wearing a HRM because my heart rate was up exactly where I wanted it the whole time, even approaching my max.

So I finish up, shoot the breeze with a few folks, shower, change, and go back to the office. My twenty-something front office assistant, who was also in the class, is chowing down a big salad. As I walk by him I say, "Well that was a pretty good class, glad I went. I'm finally getting over this dumb cold, but I think I sweated off the worst of it."

"Yeah," he says. "It was great and I was working my ass off....and I got stuck with one of those cruddy bikes, the ones that have the readings all jacked up. I was on settings of 4, 5, & 6 almost the whole time"

"You're shi**ing me! There are broken bikes in there?!?! I was kicking my own ass for being a wuss. I barely moved the dial above 8!"

"Yeah," he says. "Some of the bikes are notoriously bad on the calibration. You didn't know that?"

"Listen to my voice, monkey boy, does it sound like I knew that?!"

He looked down and just stared at his salad.

"It's all good'" I told him. "Thanks for saving me the bike"

So yet another reason not to get too hung up on numbers....which for me is a tough thing because I am a numbers geek. I say I don't care about the numbers on the scale, but I sort of do. I say it's not important how much weight I can squat, but it's really pretty cool to see the numbers go up. I say I don't care about the settings on the bike.....wait a minute, I never said that, HELL YES I CARE.

So next time I go into class with a big red permanent marker.....and put a big X on any bike that's badly calibrated!

Have a great night Spark friends!