{Health} I Hate Spin Class
I took a spin class last week. I hated it. Hate might not be a strong enough characterization. I hate, hate, hate spin class. About 30 minutes into the class, I had to quit. The competitive side of me was pretty upset, but I was fighting back vomit, like yucky tuna-salad vomit, so I left class and waited for Mike to finish the 55-minute torture session. I only went to the spin class because Mike loves (LOVES) the cycling classes at our gym and wanted me to work out with him.
Normally, we do most of our working out together. We’ve been running and walking together on and off for a couple of years now, but since we joined a gym back in April we’ve struggled to align our workouts. We’re still doing a running program together (three days a week), but on the other days Mike wants to cycle, while I want to go to yoga. Because we’re so used to working out together, we made the very wrong assumption that we had to go to the gym together every, single time and had to love the same exact classes. The major reason we joined a gym was for the classes and for a place to exercise during the peak heat of the Arizona summers. Anyway, Mike very quickly fell in love with spin class and out of a sense of obligation, I went to a class with him. I was miserable. I didn’t like the music. I didn’t like the teacher. I didn’t like the rock hard seat of the exercise bike. I didn’t like the actual work out. And to make matters worse, I started to feel sick 30 minutes into the class. By the time we got home from the gym, I was running a fever, my whole body ached and I had a horrible case of the chills. I can’t say that spin class made me sick, but I had a pretty crappy 24 hours after that class, and never, ever want to go back.
Mike and I had a little chat about this and I explained to him that though he might love spin class, I don’t. And I don’t think we have to love the same classes. But, our exercise practice has been so deeply rooted in togetherness, both of us feel almost compelled to exercise together and only together. Does that make sense? We’ve been motivating each other to make healthy choices, so it feels like we have to do all of our exercise together or it’s not going to happen,
In our oh-so strong spirit of togetherness, Mike came with me to a yoga class yesterday. We even stopped at Target on the way to the gym and got him his own mat (we’re an “all in” sort of fitness couple, even if we have no idea if we’re going to love whatever it is we’re trying … that’s a whole different topic of discussion). So we got to the gym, unrolled our yoga mats and got our stretch on. It was about 15 minutes into the session when I heard Mike laughing. By about 30 minutes in, I noticed he was rolling up his mat and leaving. I finished up the class and went to find Mike. He was dripping sweat the elliptical (a machine I’m not fond of). He immediately said, “It didn’t take me long to realize: yoga is never going to be my thing. It’s nothing like everything I love about exercising.” He loves spin. I hate it. I love yoga. He hates it. And guess what? It’s okay. It was like was like we were trying to fit square pegs in a round hole. We were both insisting the other just had to love the same classes we loved and it doesn’t work that way. And it never will. I listened to my body and it said “NO SPIN CLASS.” And I’m going to respect that. And happily, Mike is going to respect that too and never ask me to go to spin class with him ever again.
We returned his yoga mat to Target on our way home the gym. There’s no point in keeping it. He’s never going to love yoga or even like yoga. And I’m not going to ask him to go to yoga class with me. We’ll run and walk together and all the other stuff we can do on our own (no more spin class for me!!!).