Flywheel

‘Can’t wait to see you waddle into the office tomorrow’ was the text I got from my colleague after a session of Flywheel. This new sport, without want of a better comparison, is a combination of a spinning class crossbred with a heady nightclub. It’s a winning combination if you’re up for a gruelling 45 minutes of punishment.

Oblivious to what the next three quarters of an hour would bring

It’s a Sunday and no fool should do what I’ve just done; effectively push my body to a pretty tough plateau, without any alcohol or illness to blame for the subsequent feeling of nausea.

Flywheel is an intense workout. You get clipped into the pedals with your new cycling shoes, the room switches from exercise studio to disco vibe and the session inevitably starts enthusiastically. As time wears on, the ache in my legs and the nagging voice in my head tells me I can’t go on and wonders why I was so stupid to not ask how to remove myself from the clipped pedals.

With little option but to push on, I force myself up on the level of intensity and the reps per minute to find myself moving up nicely on the leaderboard from my original starting position of 10^th place (last place). The leaderboard is perhaps one of the most ingenious things about Flywheel. It is so aptly placed at key intervals to offer healthy competition between you and your fellow riders; helping to drive your legs to circle even faster.

I’ve heard the phrase that if you’re sweating, it means your fat is crying. At Flywheel, without lie, both fat and muscle were crying! I finished up red-faced and in 8^th position by the end of the session. After checking up online, I was astonished to discover I’d ridden a staggering 18.5 miles (incredulous…perhaps there’s a glitch in the system?), and burned around 630 calories.

The comedown from the ride was, in fairness, a bit of a rollercoaster. It took a full 15 minutes for the euphoria of such an insane workout to kick in, after which I was tempted to go clubbing, but my sensible side convinced me that a shower and a cuddle with the cat was more appealing.

So, will I be returning for another Flywheel fix? The answer to that question is still open ended, but I’m pretty confident it will be answered tomorrow morning when I can barely move my legs…waddling indeed.

Cycle fever

There’s no denying it… the weather is hotting up in Dubai now and I can barely manage a walk to and from the metro without arriving at my destination looking like I’ve been for a swim. It’s therefore with a twinge of sadness that I’ll soon be seeking out indoor exercise activities.

However before I start breathing recycled air to keep fit, rather than pitching my luck for a punishing regimen in the sweltering sand pit outside, I trundled off to test out a relatively new concept in the marina area, reminiscent of London’s Boris Bikes.

Having a father whose primary love is cycling and is quite adept at it well into his 70s, I’d often hoped his talent hadn’t fallen too far from the tree. Alas I am, in fact, attuned to quite the reverse and make a habit of spectacularly falling off my bike on family routes around the Forest of Dean…I kid you not, family routes! It’s always with some trepidation that I climb onto a bike, faltering like a child in the beginning before finding my balance and whizzing off.

And it was so, as I hired a bike on a credit card at Dubai Marina. Cruising past the luxurious boats by bike, I’ll be blunt, made me feel cool, in more than one sense of the word. However while it really is a far more pleasant way to travel around the area, it comes with a caveat. With a lack of cycle path and navigating successfully around pedestrians not being my forte, my only chance of avoiding collisions is pedalling at stupid-o-clock in the morning. Since I’m no sadist, I’ll be leaving the bicycle tucked up in its stand until a quiet weekend when everyone is out of town…and not only will I avoid death by pedestrian, but that no one will see me fall off either. Win-Win!

Wackier Races

Almost daily I wonder if Dubai really is the international hub for the weird and wonderful and here’s why:

After returning home from work a couple of weeks ago, I discovered a man coming down the stairs in my apartment block with his rather large dog. He seemed the athletic type so I anticipated he’d be taking the dog out for a walk and had merely decided to start his exercise regimen in the stairwell. How wrong I was.

Despite the rather balmy temperatures outside, he waltzed across the reception to the adjacent staircase and back up again. I’d like to stake that he lived on a high floor meaning that both he and the dog got rather a good workout, but the pessimist in me thinks he’s probably a first floor dweller with little time to take his dog outside, even for a five minute canter around the block.

That’s just one example but there are plenty more surprises that find their way into my life almost weekly.

This week’s oddity comes in the form of a bicycle…or perhaps it was a cross trainer which was being ridden rather enthusiastically by a man along the beach road. To be honest I don’t know what this contraption is. It had handle bars, no saddle and pedals that were synonymous with a cross trainer.

Through a quick internet search, I have discovered it is called an Elliptical Bicycle. I can’t quite figure how the whole balance thing would work given I can barely stay on a stationary cross trainer, but despite how crazy it looks, I’m desperate to test it out. Here it is in action through this video which certainly makes for an amusing alternative of wacky races.

Time for better cycling safety?

It was with some reluctance I gave up the chance to see the final stage of the Tour of Oman this weekend. Despite my best intentions, I just couldn’t decline the invitation to my first ever Indian wedding. It was a gorgeously decorative affair with a vegetarian menu: quashing fears among the meat-eating guests that they would be responsible for upstaging the wedding procession with an impromptu gallop post-dinner: (lame I know, but I couldn’t resist).

This weekend also presented the chance to experience my first baby shower. Although frankly mystified by the American concept, I begrudgingly admit that I’m now a bit of a convert: purely because it offers friends of the expectant mother the opportunity to well-wish her into parenthood.

So with this hectic schedule, my weekend was brusquely chopped in half and the 10 hour round trip to Muscat in one day to watch men racing in lycra suddenly lost its appeal. Incidentally Chris Froome managed rather brilliantly without my support on the corniche of the Omani capital to claim his first ever major race victory.

With the latest tour wins and glittering medal haul from British cyclists, there’s no denying that cycling’s image has been sexed up, bar the Armstrong episode, yet the sport is still battling the threats to its very foundations.

Just weeks after the Olympic haze lifted, Bradley Wiggins and Team GB’s head cycling coach were hospitalised following two separate road accidents involving a car.

Yesterday a cyclist was found at the roadside in Essex with serious head wounds. Although the circumstances of the incident are not yet clear, it does once again raise the question over the safety of other road users, such as cyclists, pedestrians and yes, even horses.

In Britain, we are asking our cyclists not to cycle on the pavement, but are we providing adequate enough safety for them on our roads? If our Olympians are in danger on the country’s roads, what chance do the rest of us have for a nice Sunday afternoon pedal?

According to the government, ‘promoting cycling and safer cycling is a top priority’. Although this petition is a way off the 100,000 signatures required for it to be discussed by the backbenchers, it has already received a response from the government and is certainly worth signing: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/44059

Superhuman Sunday

It has been said the velodrome is the loudest of the Olympic venues and it’s easy to see why. Not only is it closed in, but the crowds go bananas as the tension builds when the cyclists whizz round. I was in the crowd, I was one of them going bananas and I was one of them who was so proud to be there yesterday.

My day in the Paralympic park started with watching the swimming heats, followed by elevenses at the blind football. I was pretty astounded by it. It’s a 5-a-side game of 25 minutes in each half. The ball makes a noise, the players wear blindfolds and the hardest part…the crowd must stay silent. Needless to say, that didn’t happen when new people came in who hadn’t seen it before but it’s a curious sport and one I have big respect for.

I lunched outside the velodrome before taking my seat ready to join the ranks of supporters flying the flag for, you guessed it, Team GB! I pitched the flag over the rail and before I knew it my husband had been spotted by the commentator to start a series of waves in the arena, namely the Mexican, Guatemalan and the Madison. This was followed by a side of delicious victory ceremonies.

For tea, the wheelchair tennis had the pleasure of our company, before we headed to goal ball. This was another curious and silent sport. Three blindfolded players on each team take turns to roll the ball in a bid to score. GB was playing against Finland, who had a brilliant goal scorer!

I trundled off home after some dinner at Westfield and am now tucked up on the sofa cheering on the swimmers!!

Enjoy the rest of Manic Monday!