You know, I look back fondly on the days where meeting up with friends involved coffee and cake. I mean sure, my arse was often too big for the chairs and I’d sometimes find myself wedged behind a table trying not to look as squashed as I felt, but there was always laughter and there was always cake.

The trouble these days is, I’ve managed to fall in with a band of hooligans who’ve turned their back on cake in favour of doing shit that hurts. And that’s how come I ended up earlier this week in a spin class. Yes, you really did hear that right.

I’ve not been back yet to the Kingdom of Pain. I will, but I’ve only just nicely been signed off as fit after my surgery and with mum being poorly and all I just haven’t had the chance to resume my classes. I’ve been swimming pretty much every day so I’ve still kept a focus on being active but it’s been a while since I did the kind of exercise that makes me want to go lie down in a darkened room afterwards.

My friend had been given a voucher for a different fitness studio, and she invited a couple more of us along to get in on the action, which is how we all ended up in the loft of an old warehouse on a wet and windy Wednesday night wearing padded shorts.

Now, I’ve never been spinning before, but I do know people who have. Most of them look like whippets, so to be honest it’s never struck me as a fat-girl activity. I suspected it might be quite hard. I allowed myself to get lulled into a false sense of security as we arrived because they were serving hot chocolate with marshmallows in a little cafe room with more than its fair share of cute, so what’s not to love about that? And the lady who runs it was warm and friendly and smiley so I mean really, how bad could it be?

Bad ASS. That’s how bad. Holy shit.

Hands up, who knew, that one quarter turn of the tiniest knob could make your legs feel like lead? And who knew that saddles could be made of something harder than concrete? And who knew it was even possible to sweat that much?

I damn well loved it. The music was awesome, I mean there was none of this crappy modern stuff…she played Queen, and Abba at full volume and we all sang along at the tops of our voices as we were pedalling up hill after hill. It was a bit like carpool karaoke on two wheels. Don’t get me wrong, the class was really hard but I found myself getting so carried away with the atmosphere that I forgot to notice I was having a near death experience.

Walking down the stairs afterwards on rubber legs was interesting, but the only lingering after-effects have been the memory of that concrete saddle and the carnage it caused in my nether regions. Let’s just say I was perched sideways on my chair yesterday and even now, sitting down makes me wince.

Truth be told, I can’t wait to go back 🙂

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