Let's (not) Get Physical

Have you ever done something, and a few minutes after you started you realized it was a huge – COLOSSAL – mistake but you've already committed and there's no way out and you just sit there praying for death? I'm sure by now you've figured out I'm talking about spinning. Or, as the ancient Mayans called it – El Diablo Loco.

I've never been what anyone would call “athletic,” or “able to sustain an elevated heart rate without vomiting.” But I recently joined a new gym because I'm determined to lose about 30 pounds in the next two weeks and I wanted to get the most bang for my workout buck.

My friend invited me to accompany her to a spinning class and I was all, “Oh awesome – my friends and I used to chew tobacco all the time in the cow pastures” and she was all, “Not spitting... SPINNING you backwoods redneck” and I saw her mentally recalculating our friendship.

My whole life I've been under the impression that my sweat glands were broken. When I work out my face gets red and maybe, maybe I will have a single bead of sweat form on my brow, but I don't really sweat. Another thing the spinning class taught me was that what I was doing was not called working out – it was called eating cake.

I am learning so much on my quest to get my body swimsuit-ready. The first few minutes into the class I started to smell my deodorant, which made me happy I had remembered to put it on the day before. After a few more minutes I began to smell something else. I immediately recognized it as my hair color. Then I started sweating out things I'd eaten three years ago. Halfway through my thighs were on fire and I was three centimeters dilated.

My feet were hooked into the petals so there was no escape. I looked over at my friend and she was asking me something. I could see her lips moving but all I could hear was the techno music vibrating my ear drums and the instructor yelling something about this being the easy part. “I think I'm having a heart attack!” I yelled at her. “Oh, you don't have that much hair on your back!” She shouted.

Then my legs went completely numb. I thought they had detached themselves from my pelvis and run out the door, but I looked down and they were still pedaling away. I knew there would be hell to pay tomorrow but I took advantage of nature's gift and finished the class. But the pain didn't wait until tomorrow... it came pretty much the minute I stepped off the bike and put weight on my quads.

If my legs looked like they felt, I would have looked down and seen bloody shreds of pulp hanging from my hips. “What did you think?” My friend asked me as I tried to stop the muscle spasm so I could put one foot in front of the other and inch toward the door.

“Man – I've really worked up an appetite. Do you think they serve cake in the cafe downstairs?”