You know when you just have a day where everything is rubbish? Today is that day for Gym Ninja.
Having looked forward to her Saturday Slaughter session ALL week, Gym Ninja bounced (kind of) out of bed and got herself ready for the gym. It's a fantastic feeling knowing that you're going to be pushed for an entire hour of Spin Hell. Truly! Gym Ninja loves feeling half-dead at the end...
Bounce bounce into the gym went Gym Ninja. A quick 10 minute warm up on the Cross Trainer, and then Gym Ninja necked half a bottle of Target Energy Shot, to back up the old energy levels. Always prepared you see!
Gym Ninja walked into the Spin Studio. Dangly Cross Man was in so Gym Ninja went to set up her usual bike in front of the vent, only to find it was broken.
"The handlebars won't stay up", Explained Dangly, which makes Gym Ninja think he must have tried to nab her bike before she came in, Or else, how would he know...? So Gym Ninja sat the other side of him, spent ages setting up her bike, only to then discover the foot strap was missing. AHHHR! Time to find another bike.
By now, Gym Ninja was sat in the middle of the room, nowhere near an air con vent. Godammit, Gym Ninja will melt in a pool of sweat without air con! But it was now 5 minutes until kick off (so to speak) and no sign of the Fab Instructor....hmmm...the class were getting nervous. What if she didn't show up???
As if by magic, in strode a young guy, headed towards the Instructor bike, and plonked on the headset. NO Fab Instructor today then? This was rapidly followed by 6 people dismounting their bikes and walking right out of the class as his back was turned. You see, the Saturday Spin Class of one hour is a hardcore class, and they do not suffer fools....Gym Ninja felt disappointed. PLEASE let this guy be half decent...?
"I've not tried this CD before" He said, before switching on what must have been the world's most inappropriate music for a spin class. Slow thudding beat like a metronome...boom, boom, boom, boom....in time to you chanting 'one potato, two potato, three potato'..so yeh, slow!
"Let's warm up!" he cried...."In time to the beat..."
*cue one potato, two potato, three potato, four potato...*
Gym Ninja's legs wanted to go faster. Everyone's legs wanted to go faster, but Metronome (the instructor) wanted everyone IN TIME to the slow beat.
Imagine this slow relentless beat, unchanging from 90s dance classic to 90s dance classic, plodding on for an WHOLE hour and you can partly imagine the class Gym Ninja found herself in.
'Up for 8, down for 8.....3, 2, 1, go" Counted Metronome, by now starting to sound like The Count off Sesame Street...
Now usually, in an hour of Spin on a weekend, Gym Ninja has two thoughts in her head throughout the class.
1. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die"
and
2. "Ffff*ckkkkkkkkk!"
Today, however, Gym Ninja managed to plan her entire day and compile a mental 'things to do' list, all whilst not breaking a sweat.
"If you're not sweating you're not working hard enough" Boomed Metronome.
No sh*t Sherlock, as they say. NO ONE was working hard enough. Even with the resistance rammed on, the beat was too slow to raise anyone's heart rate higher than maybe 65% max?
Eventually, the hour long nightmare ended. What a boring class. If Ikea wrote spin classes this would have been one of them. Very 'prescriptive' but no actual personality injected into it, nor adaptation to suit the fitness level of the class. Just lots of patterns of standing and seated climbs and 15, 30 and 60 second pyramids of sprints. Oh and time to plan a 'to do' list...
After Spin ended, and having listened to some of the others moan about the class, Gym Ninja headed downstairs to do a run (next to a man slathered in Deep Heat Muscle Rub), before starting her lower body weights session. All whilst suffering a pang of loss from not getting her usual fabulous spin session. Grrr!
Detouring on route home, Gym Ninja had a nasty 'card refused' moment at the Petrol Station. Looks like the overdraft limit had been reached, yet Gym Ninja is not due to get paid until Wednesday. Bugger! How will Gym Ninja pay for car parking to do her job next week? ARRRH! Then, the momentary excitement at seeing that her new business cards had arrived, was ruined when she saw they'd printed the cards on BLUE instead of white, thus making them unusable. AHHHHR again!
So now Gym Ninja is grumpy, but will settle down and hit the books. Coursework awaits for the rest of the evening, so fingers crossed everything else goes to plan eh?
See you all tomorrow...an hour EARLIER if you are in the UK as don't forget to put your clocks forward 1 hour tonight. (HOW useful is Gym Ninja eh?)
Grumpy Ninja x
