Black & Purple

There are certain Carolyn-isms I love. BEAUTIFUL JOB! is one of them. 

 Another is and I am not sure how to spell it, but I will take a shot. Unh-unh-unh. It comes when she is posting up for a sprint. I get pumped up for those and there are not many instructors that get me in the anaerobic zone on a flat road, but she does.  

Today like all her classes time rockets by, and when I looked up for the first time at the clock, 45 minutes was gone. I was blown away; it was going to be over way too soon. I always take that to mean that I had a great time and when I think back on most of my workouts at Equinox prior to my spin career there’s not many that I can say I enjoyed as much as I do when I am in the CS, and The Blue Sapphire is an integral part of this bliss.  

I wanted to title this entry something like Black and Blue Sapphire. Our heroine had on a black top and I could have sworn she had on a pair of blue tights.  Sounds picturesque, but those hopes were dashed when Carolyn said what’s up those purple pants?  I was damn sure they were blue. I know that black and blue marks turn purple but that was not going to fit my story line. I am a little short on metaphors, but if something comes to me I will make sure I add it as an extra later tonight. 

It was a great week all around and Sunday was icing on the cupcake. 

Just Messin Around

The CS, which will soon become a closet of all things, had the ambience of a Hot Yoga class.  It was indeed warm, only to get hotter with 41 riders pumping our collective pedal stroke and heartbeats to.  The fact that The Blue Sapphire would be at the head of the class insured that fact as a foregone conclusion. But so what!  It meant that we had to finish our water bottles and maybe wipe our brows a few more times than normal.  It was Sunday with Carolyn, The Blue Sapphire and we weren’t going to let a little more sweat get in our way of having the ride we love to end the weekend with.

Carolyn, always has a well thought out choreography, and her music as she calls it, is eclectic but it’s always recognizable and never obscure. I love her ongoing commentary because she handles what we are thinking about out loud which gives us the feeling we are not alone. She knows the hour is challenging and she never messes around. It’s all-serious because she really cares but it’s always fun.   She throws her 100+ pounds into every nuance of her ride but it seems like it carries the weight of a Mack truck.  

This week was a challenging one, because I had taken 8 classes and I didn’t have the usual pizzazz because sexagenarians do have their limits. Or do they?  I had a blast being in Roslyn, Woodbury, and Scarsdale and back in Woodbury for The Blue Sapphire. I thought of cutting out but my heart just wouldn’t buy it.  

The Ringer

It’s not often that I am writing about The Blue Sapphire in a Thursday and a Sunday edition. It’s usually one or the other. This week however, had me lucky to catch the blazing blue star twice and she was three times as good. I had decided on her early ride subbing for Young Atlas, Damian and it made my Sunday decidedly different.  

In the front row, I spotted one rider that stuck out like a sore thumb.  He was what looked to be 6’7”, and with that strapping physiology he seemed almost to dwarf his bike. I knew he was an outdoor rider not merely by his size and presence but because when we were way up the resistance dial in position #3, he was sitting in the saddle.  Commanding an even pedal stroke with the resistance dial at 9 out of 10 while being in the saddle is a strenuous posture indeed. It just was my intuition that outside was his real home, not the safe confines of the CS.  I’m not saying the outside rider is better than we stationary aficionados, but the contrast of one to the other is decidedly a world apart. 

Carolyn is not merely a charismatic talent, but she is also a highly skilled technician. Always doling out precious information about breathing, posture and cadence, she gets under our ‘engine’ to make sure we are pedaling efficiently and not out of control. When we are gunning our motors, she can be found checking our flywheel and pedal stroke and when she signals okay with that smile and those striking sapphire eyes we are good to go.  

The next time I spot “The Ringer” I will look for clues and model his spinning choreography. 

The Electricity

This Thursday night with The Blue Sapphire topped the best rides list once again. There was something that gave it a conspicuous difference beyond the charisma of Carolyn Mellace.  It was how fully associated the whole CS had become. With each petition, The Blue Sapphire got enthusiastic backtalk cheering that resounded off the walls of the studio like Flubber,* with no sign of fatigue no matter how far up the resistance dial we traveled. And travel up we did. It just didn’t seem to matter and the fact that I wasn’t the only one being heard in the CS, told me we were riding the curl of a truly thrilling ride. 

Is there such a thing as too many adjectives when describing a person? Probably not, but I didn’t want to seem like I was overdoing it, because I strive to report what I see, and because this blog is experiential in nature, I have to be there to really capture the true feeling of the moment, the hour. As I watched the reflected image of our lithesome dynamo with the spectacular musculature pedaling with the speed of that Superman locomotive, I realized that I might   have run out of superlatives in describing Carolyn, The Blue Sapphire. (Until the next ride) She is another that is larger than life than she is in person.  

No Air Turns

How can it be that each time I take to the Schwinn bike with The Blue Sapphire that this ride is even better than the last? I don’t know why, but again it was true today. I had sent her a suggestion to play The Killers song, Human and without being cognizant, it was the first song she played today during the warmup.  In fact, the first 15 minutes went by in a blink and even though she warned us not to lose it all in the opening moments, I had a difficult time holding back. The choreography couldn’t have been scripted any better than she had on her line up card. I had forgotten just how tired I was from a frenetic week culminating in tag team at Roslyn yesterday in Pam’s Boot Camp and a session in the CS with The Heart of Stone, Cathy Munzer.

There is never a session with Carolyn that looks like the last. She is actively making each hour unique, and in the mix of music and her ride there is nothing formulaic. The jumps today were particularly innovative and by the time we ended that interval, I was gasping in the zone anaerobic. One thing I learned in the beginning from Carolyn, was how to breathe. I was prone to mouth breathing and she taught me that that was the most inefficient way to get oxygen. More air maybe but not air high in oxygen content as nose breathing avails us of. However, it was not easy to breathe in that way as it took tremendous discipline. Eventually I got the hang of it and even in higher resistances I am fairly successful breathing in through the nose, and exhaling through the mouth.

Near the end of our ride The Blue Sapphire had us do a mind bending interval hill climb, using 5 full turns up and then taking it off in the saddle. She spied someone and said: No air turns! AYKM? Would anyone really do that in her class? She gives us her heart and soul, we should give nothing less than our level best and a 1/4 more turn to the right.