As many of my Twitter followers and Facebook 'Friends' will know, I do a lot of my cycle training on a Spin Bike - usually four classes per week, with additional warm up time this amounts to approximately 4 hours per week.
Recently, I devised a challenge for myself in order to raise funds for my sponsorship for the "backfromboro" ride - the challenge was to 'Spin' for a full 10 hours! - Not just to sit on the bike and pedal, but to actually 'Spin' as I would in a class session - non stop!
The objective was to get my fellow Gym members at The Hub in Portishead to join me, but they would need to make a donation if they were going to join in. Gym owners Andy & Claire let me have use of the Spin Studio for the day and I started right on time at 8:00am supported by my wife Sarah for the first couple of hours and then the other guys started to join in.
By 5:00pm, my collecting bucket was looking good and loads of people had kept me motivated but the legs were starting to 'hang' - the final hour until 6:00pm took the form of a normal Sunday evening Spin class for 45 minutes. A full class of fellow 'Spinners' helped me through with a full-on session and much to my delight, 9 of the crew stayed with me for the final 15 minutes - great encouragement!
At the end I was glad to have achieved the challenge I set myself - more so, I raised £500 which I was highly delighted with and I have been quite humbled by ever since - it just goes to show what can be achieved!
Having burnt 5,896 calories during the day, proper recovery was important of course, so on the following day, a normal full-on Monday Spin class seemed a good idea - my leg muscles didn't thank me though!
So, I am now hoping the weather improves and I can go out on the roads (pothole dodging) and get some serious miles in, the Spin bike is a substitute and a good one, but not quite the real thing.
If you need some power in your legs, give Spin a try, if you need to perfect your technique, give Spin a try, if you need to increase your cardio vascular fitness, definately give Spin a try - you will grow to love it!
Safe riding guys!
Steve
