Thirty Seconds

This morning's bike workout was all about intervals.  After a 15 minute warm up, the main set was 10 x 30 seconds hard and 30 seconds rest done twice.  How hard could it be to ride full out for 30 seconds with 30 seconds rest?  Pretty hard. This was to be done at Zone 5/6 and I knew I was in trouble as my heart rate was in Zone 3 by the third interval.  By around the 8th interval on the first set, I was gripping the handlebars hard, eyes closed, teeth clinched, legs burning.  I glanced at my watch and was shocked to see only 17 seconds passed and I still had another 13 seconds to go.  My heart rate was well into Zone 6 and close to hitting max of 166 bps.  By the 6th interval on the second set my heart rate was still in Zone 5 when I started the next interval.  Remember, this is what you asked for.  The session was followed by a 30 minute run off the bike.  It was a lot colder than I expected (around 1 degree Celsius) as on Tuesday morning I ran in shorts and T-shirt at 6 am.

Because it is March Break, I'm taking today, tomorrow and Friday off.  Tammy arranged to have a neighbour baby sit the kids so we went to her spin class two hours after I finished my brick workout.  I've never been to a spin class so wasn't quite sure what to expect.  It was in a small room that had lots of fans set up and about 20 spin bikes.  There were mostly females and the instructor knows some of the same triathletes I know.  In fact she knows ex-coach as well.  The triathlon community is very small where there probably is only one or two degrees of separation.

The class started out and it didn't take long for the room to heat up.  Within the first 10 minutes I was dripping.  There were lots of intervals and hill climbing.  By 20 minutes I began to wonder if I was able to finish.  My legs were burning.  There was a massive puddle of sweat forming on the floor beneath me.  In fact, I drained my water bottle (700 ml - 26 ozs) within 40 minutes and had to stop and get more water.  The girl beside me snickered about me not being able to hack it.  Mind you, I was working a lot harder than she was.

Bottom line:  the spin class was pretty tough.  One of my friends who did IMSG for the first time by riding mostly spin classes.  I think his longest outdoor ride was only 120 km.  I can see how the spin class helped him.  I burned 637 calories in this class while during my usual ride I burn 500 - 600 calories.

I had trouble walking up and down the stairs through out the day and needed a nap.