Day One Hundred and Seventy Eight - Karla's Spin Class

Dear all,

My wonderful friend Karla is truly a superhero! Today, I dashed out after work to make Karla's first step class of the fall season at the biggest gym in town, 'Tag'. http://www.tagfitness.ca

Tag is great space comprised of a fully decked out gym, squash courts, aerobics hall, sports clothes shop and [shudder] area for spinning. Spinning, for those who are unaware, is probably the most intense work out that you will ever do. It is HARD CORE!

Nearly 1,000,000 people 'spin', whether it be in a class or on a specially designed bike at home, every day. It is known for attracting fitness enthusiasts from around the globe due to its fiendish intensity from start to finish of the work out.

Karla is a brilliant instructor and despite being around 3 minutes late, the class was well underway. The difficulty of the class is modulated in three key ways: By varying the resistance of the pedals, by changing the cadence of the spinning and by alternating between sitting and standing.

Karla got some fabulous tunes pumping through the sound system including the iconic 'Empire State of Mind' by Jay Z and Alicia Keys which made the pain inflicted by the treacherous work out more bearable and really drove you on to finish. At the end of the session I was exhausted. Despite the fact that I can happily trot around Collingwood with my MP3 player for hours on end, 45 minutes of spinning nearly got the better of me. 7 minutes of 'seated' hill climbing is enough to break the hardiest of fitness fanatic!

A major shout out must go to the amazing Karla as she has only just started teaching in the last year and is flawless at her craft, the perennial professional in all that she does. I highly recommend to all CWood folk out there: Tag Gym at 5:15 every Friday!