Bonus Spinning Class New Years Eve

Coach Ryan gave us a bonus spinning class today for 2 hours! It was very generous of him since it was his day off. Megan, Jared and a non-class member attended most of the session.

He showed us a video of a beautiful mountain bike ride through Washington for the first hour and then we watched Harry Potter. We rode in Zone 2 for most of the ride with occasional jumps for a minute to zone 3. I forgot what my cycling zones were and was following it as if it were my running zones which are much more intense. At first I couldn't get past zone 1 at 142 bpm until 30 minutes into the spin session. Then as I heated up, I was into zone 2, 151 bpm, most of the time and crawled up closer to zone 3 according to my Polar watch zones.

At the end of the 1st hour, I noticed that I was slowing down and coach Ryan was concerned if I was ok. I tried to step it up but my legs and feet were beginning to feel like lead. After an hour and a half, I figured I'd better save something for my two mile run to the bus stop. As I ran, I found it was increasely difficult to keep running. My pace kept dropping to a walk. With the snow it is even more difficult and I saw my heart rate jumping up into zone 2. I kept thinking about Subway and eating a sandwhich and drinking Dr Pepper. I usually avoid soda but I was craving it badly.

I finally made it to Subway and wolfed down a foot long meatball marinara and drank 26 oz of Dr Pepper. I am going to have to make sure that I bring a water bottle and snacks if I'm going to go longer times in training. The Bonk is not pleasant and I hope that taking a CaloriePoint (metabolism) test to figure out how many calories I need to keep running a marathon or biking all day long.

I reviewed my CardioPoint test results for cycling. It turns out that my watch was using my running zones instead of my cycling zones. I was actually in zone 3 and 4 the entire time! I didn't bring water or any snacks to keep my energy up. If I had stayed within the correct zones then I would have been able to easily keep up with the rest of my spin class for the entire 2 hours. I need to remember that zone 2 for cycling is 120-135 bpm and zone 3 is 135 - 151.
This was a really good learning for me. The experience of running into the wall or bonk demonstrated what coach Ryan and Casey told me would happen if I were to exert myself in zones 3 and 4 for over an hour without some form of support or replenishment.