Spinning: The one where I spun….

We are not that type of couple.

He who helped create them and I, we are not the type of couple who grab their gym bags, slip into their matching Lycra and skip happily off to the gym together.

We are more the sit on the sofa, share a box of Celebrations and a bottle of wine, and grow old and fat type of couple.

Until today….

Today we slipped into lycra, grabbed our gym bags, and headed off to a spin class together.  My first time and his second.  I fear for us, this new direction in our relationship is worrying, I don’t know where it will take us.  It is a deviation on our get old and fat road and unsettling to say the least.

It must be the Cornish air that we are drinking more than Pinot whilst on our holidays at Retallack Resort.  It is clearly turning us funny.

Anyway, back to the class.

I strode in, trying to not look like I was terrified and quickly identified the bike furthest away from the teacher and claimed it as my own.  He who helped create them bagged one at the front, so my view for the session would be his backside bouncing on a bike.

Interesting.

The class was headed up by a beautiful creature, slim, toned and exquisitely clothed in Lycra that clearly didn’t come from Asda.  I mentally wondered how many classes I would have to attend to get a body like hers.

Then we began.

Holy shit.

We started off steady, riding a bike with quick legs and no resistance.  Within approximately three and a half minuets I felt like vomiting over the handle bars and my legs were mush.  I cursed Mary Poppins for making bike riding look so simple.

The instructor grinned at me, ‘keep going, puuussshh’ she chirped as I felt my lower body fall away and my legs burn in a chorus of anger.

He who helped create them pedaled on in front of me, luckily he couldn’t see the anguish on my features as I wondered who would look after the children if neither of us survived this class.

“Up, down, Up down, pusssshhhhh,” cried the instructor.

The last time anyone told me to push this much I produced a baby.

My legs went on, moving in terror, at one point I thought they would detach from my hips and fly across the dark, sweaty room and knock the petite instructor straight off her bike.

That would be embarrassing, not for me obviously, as I think losing two limbs instantaneously on a bike would also provide the relief of instant death, but imagine the shame for he who helped create them.  Having to stumble off the bike to collect up bits of me, apologize to the instructor for the inconvenience caused by my flying thighs and then head home to tell the children of mummy’s spinning passing.

Luckily, for all in the room, my legs somehow remained attached.

Forty minutes later, I was a red, throbbing, panting mess.  The end was near and tears pricked at my eyes as I saw a future which had me living in it.

I survived, I am a survivor.

And tonight?

It is back to celebrations and wine, a far safer way of living.