Spinning, suspension and satisfaction.

I've always thought that people who choose Spinning as an activity should be committed. Why on earth would anyone subject themselves to sweating profusely on a bike going nowhere, with a rock hard saddle assaulting you and someone shouting at you ?? You'd have to be out of your mind .....so, last Tuesday night Bigfoodiemama went Spinning. Rapid Ronan, king of the spinners, very kindly laid on a new beginners class for the KOK's and the other spaces were filled by folks we mostly knew and the rest we will, of course, know very well, very soon. Rapid looked at me nervously but kindly on my arrival in my padded cycling shorts. I had bought them earlier in the day on the advice of my work colleagues, who looked at me in astonishment as I told them of my plans and advised me that a) I would not enjoy it, b) it would hurt and c) they really could not find anything positive to say about spinning. They did advise the padded shorts so I headed off to Sports World and bought a size 16 pair of Muddyfox cycling shorts. Foxes appear have different sizing to females as it was quite an effort to draw them up over my feminine thighs and my eldest son felt the need to advise me that they made me look " bigger!" Great start ! Off I went, suitably if uncomfortably attired with a bottle of water, a towel and my Ventolin inhaler. I was sh***ing myself. I advised Rapid of my fear and he very kindly advised me he would be taking it easy on us and kindly led me over to a specific bike advising me it was " very reliable". This made me relaxed for a couple of minutes until I remembered that Rapid Ronan owes me for certain blog posts and that the " very reliable" bike might actually be booby trapped especially for me ! This turned out not to be the case. Rapid advised us to " enjoy the ride" and thanks to his encouragement, instruction and understanding of our various disabilities, I certainly did. The 35 minutes spinning flew and it was a blast. Just as I was relaxing and drawing breath and thinking of packing up to go home, he led us over to the section of his gym which resembled the Red Room in a certain movie ( lots of shades !!!) and got us all to grab on to a pair of straps suspended from the ceiling.....blimey...this was unexpected but I did get quite excited. Rapid had us in all kinds of positions , places I had not been in years, but again it was highly enjoyable. A last 10 minutes on the mats doing ab work finished off a brilliant mixed class and we were buzzing.
I was back ! The buttock injury which has limited my running enjoyed it all, apart from the pressure of the big hard black saddle....boy was I glad I was in the old Muddyfoxes ! Rapid may have lulled us into a false sense of trust and security and like Arnie....I'll be back !