Being the first night back in my own bed in a week I didn’t sleep well. A difficult late conversation and the pending early wakeup were hanging over me like low hanging fruit. Compounding this tension was the on-off inflammation in my left hip. When ‘on’ it stings like a wounded bumble bee, and when ‘off’, hurts like a son-of-a-gun. In sum, REMs came very late and even THEY were obnoxious.
As the Sponge Bob Squarepants clock sped ever forward, faster than usual it seemed, I did my breath counts and finally exposed my cold body to the chilly morning. I have a morning routine that makes an attempt at production efficiency. We semi-dance through the brushing of teeth, flossing, mouthwash, shave (I am still using the electric Norelco I bought 15 years ago) en route to the kitchen where a shot of lemon juice in hot water chases two anticoagulant pills down the hatch. It is important that cuppa joe uno is in the micro during this preparatory phase as the bicycle clock tells me that I am running two minutes behind schedule this cold November morning. Grab the coffee and pack the kit for class, I select the brown/gold jersey with black shorts and a gold headband for the morning’s spin class and pack the iPad containing the musical accompaniment. Since I have no idea what the session’s protocol will be I start to consider some possibilities.
The wifi has been sporadic at best the last week or so leaving me with the Plan C option of going without a morning news fix or asking my phone to deliver the ‘sure to be bad’ updates of all-things Democratic. Fair and balanced it was once known as. I decide, after a cursory check of the two computers at my disposal, that being updated is going to have to wait, and grab my rain jacket, kit and coffee. We open the kitchen door to the outside world when I am immediately greeted with a cold slap in the face by a seemingly irritated wind and rain duo. I mutter something about needing to do better than THAT and trudge towards my truck in total darkness.
On the drive, peaceful at this hour, to Junior’s for our Wednesday workout, I am still considering the protocol for the spin class. Remembering that I left them with an assignment on Monday (to have their best week ever) I devise a couple of options. Certainly I will ask for an update (how are we doing?). But what after that? The price of gas in 1959?
I am listening to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude as I drive. When it comes to me with artistic precision and romantic flow. I hear the outline as if it was a Spanish dance, soft, subtle and sexy.
There are really only three things we need to be concerned with today amigos e amigas, three possibilities that, when combined, answer some big questions. Consider them closely and you’ll see. Riding our stationary bicycles we are, besides going nowhere fast and torching calories like the bonfire of our insanities, juggling only three colored balls. Keeping them in motion we ask but three things:
What position,
With what intensity,
and for how long.
Position. Intensity. Duration.
The sub categorical elements become those of power and speed.
I ask a question of the class requesting a show of hands. Which would you prefer to have and to hold until death doth part them from you, Strength of Speed? The vote was almost 50/50 when I tell then that it was a trick question. Because the correct answer is, of course, BOTH.
We then proceed to kill a set alternating positions, ascending intensities, adding duration, sprinting for ten seconds of explosive power and quick pedaling, before resting and recovering.
I ask them for a silent internal update on their assignment and mention that Saturday will be another chance to make this the best week ever. Adding that it is not too late to add some value to the equation between our joyous classroom time together.
Nice work.
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