Tour de Gym

So tonight, I won the Tour de France of my gym. It was great.. I had been training for it for months running and cycling just for this evening's race. I mean all that hard work really paid off and I even got a yellow jersey as my reward...

Actually that is not true in the least, but I did participate in my first spin class at Maxim Fitness in the Dirty Will a.k.a Williamsburg. Now, as I stated a long long long time ago, I am not exactly the biggest fan of gyms as I often find the clientele to be less than desirable and because I have no idea what exactly I am to do once I get inside one of these bad boys.

On a typical trip to the gym, I end up running way to fast on the treadmill next to some gorgeous blond, who spends the entire time giving me a look of absolute disgust as I sweat profusely while making the treadmill violently shift and shake. By the end of my forty minute death run, the treadmill users on either side of me have found other cardiovascular machines to utilize or have left the gym entirely. Then, after my battle with the treadmill, I go and attempt to lift weights, which means that I try to pick up the heaviest weights that I can find disregarding any concept of form and/or the reality of my own physical strength. Generally, I fail miserably in this effort.

As a result of these cavalier workouts at the gym, I then usually spend the next couple of days in traction or at the very least in considerable amounts of inflexible pain. As such, I tend to go to the gym for like two weeks straight and then avoid it like the plague for a solid three months... lather rinse repeat...

Recently, I have been neglecting the gym entirely as I have been getting in four runs a week for a total of 20+ miles. While this is great as it keeps me from becoming a FAT ASS, generally, running as your only source of exercise puts you on the fast track for a variety of physical ailments and injuries such as stress fractures, shin splits, and tuberculosis. (I bet you never knew that you could get TB from running... it's true... NOm, no it is not...) In order to avoid these pitfalls especially TB and VD for that matter, I decided that I might as well put my gym membership to good use and try some of the classes that my gym offers in order to diversify my workout regiment and not be such a psychopath when it comes to utilzing the gym.

So tonight, I tried spinning, which for those that do not know (not sure who you are) is a glorified 21st century version of stationary biking. However, in order to make the workouts that much more extreme, the modern day spin classes as the kids call them (i think) mix in a healthy dosage of dark mood lighting and awful trance techno music (the kind that appears to lack both beginning and end but has a plethora of bass) coupled with extraordinarly hot temperatures... To complete the picture, gyms throw in a screaming nutbox of an instructor who along with her seven cups of coffee for the evening is also on a healthy dose of speed, crank, and oxycontin... (or maybe they simply main line Jack before the workouts, I mean it worked for Motley Crue.)

During the course of a workout, this instructor yells out a variety of commands that indicate to the spinners: what positions they are supposed to be in on their immobile bicycles (basically whether you should be standing or sitting), how fast they should be pedaling, what resistance the bike should be adjusted to, and what circle of hell they are now entering.... For the record, I believe tonight we entered the seventh circle....(for those keeping score at home, this circle contains bunny rabbits, the legendary WWF tagteam, the Killer Bees, and Teddy Ruxbin...all filming a really troubling snuff film... let's just say, the Bear gets it in the end...)

My class tonight had all of these elements along with the spazzy instructor, who with her thick Eastern European accent had the added twist in that she appeared to be a former member of the East German Women's Olympic team as her arms, legs, and chest were bigger than mine to the point that several times during the workout I had to remind myself that she was in fact a "she". Thankfully, she had not lost her flare for East German style workouts or the use of workout enhancers for that matter as she took me and the five women that were in my class (no other men) through one of the most exhausting, kick ass, hour long workouts that I have done, which by its end, caused me to forget that I was in fact pedaling as I had slipped into a weird euphoric state with the visuals discussed above... teetering on the brink of passing the fuck out... Furthermore, by the time that I was finished, I sweat enough that a moat had formed around my spinning mobile replete with alligators, piranhas, and other deadly human eating creatures. (I will save the story of how I escaped from the bike and avoided these creatures for another entry, one that I will write after I huff Freon from my air conditioner.)

Regardless of the pain and the fact that I am now questioning my own manhood, I loved every minute of it and will be back next week and every Monday for the foreseeable future... just so that Beata (that's her deliciously evil name) can bark orders at me like I am a member of the East German military during the Cold War... or her naughty sex slave.. What can I say, I am a sucker for excruciating pain especially when it is delivered by a screaming brick shit house of a woman with techno accompaniment...