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.

The Grey Panther

She cocked her head to the side flashed a blazing a baby blue topped by the white cloud above her iris and it was her check where we were in our Sunday ride with The Blue Sapphire. Resplendent in grey form fitting attire the athlete of Carolyn shone just like it does every Sunday, complete with a full house and our sense of knowing that we would be having great fun, but by rides end our collective asses would be kicked. And kicked they were.

A lightning bolt hit me during today’s ride and it came from two places. The first was the variable I was searching for; what is the salient difference between riding indoors and the outdoor version. Yes, we all know that the elements play the largest role, and the fact that we are moving over ground rather than staying on the same ceramic tile was the main difference, but there was something more I was so sure about it, but until today it was escaping my hard drive. I saw it in Stacie, yes the newlywed Stacie who has one of the brightest smiles this side of heaven and her nonchalant attitude about what she may look like when she is in the saddle of her stationary bike. She is not self-conscious. Not a speck exists in her, and she was not worried if some of her epidermis was showing as the rider next to her was clearly very concerned. This self-consciousness does not exist on the outside ride. And it was the clue I was searching for and Stacie showed me for the first time that the reason we don’t communicate as well as we could in the CS is because we are worried about what we look like. It’s not just the women that are concerned with what sweat apparently does to our good looks it’s the men as well.  Can we lose the “skin” that when we don’t look like magnifying mirror beautiful, we can get closer like our outside rider counterparts do? Just a question and I am not sure this is the singular reason but it happened in the usual way, it was nascent. 

The other major revelation came from The Blue Sapphire herself. As I noticed to my left, a young man was clenching his face for virtually the whole ride and I also knew that this doesn’t happen outside either. Tightly clenched hand grips have no place for us in the CS as well. Carolyn said, as she alluded to me about the Minnewaska ride that when biking outside we are loose not only in the hand grips and our face but how we plant ourselves in the saddle as well. It harkened back to my earlier in the week ride with The Corso Zone, that a tight physiology does not give us the results we are seeking.  Loose and flexible rather than tight and clenched. 

Thank you Carolyn it was indeed a memorable Sunday.

Frozen Core

We had a Blue Sapphire edition this past Thursday that was as challenging as ever. However I am always seeming to say that each time I spin with this superlative Equinox star. As fall starts to take hold, the setting sun virtually blinds us at the 6 o’clock hour and makes me wonder where did this year go. 

Thursday nights with Carolyn is one hell of a way to start the weekend early and fire up our metabolic oven and incinerate some of that extra caloric intake we inevitably find ourselves favoring ourselves with after a challenging work week or shopping week if your name is Nancy K.  

I was so certain that the resistance dial was the only adjustment I could make on the bike where I could improve my endurance and strength. Carolyn was the first to show me that that just wasn’t so. When she has us freeze our upper body and just use our legs, the burning in my legs is excruciating, even with little resistance in the pedal stroke. She tells us it strengthens our core and I love the idea that these short stints carry the impact they do even though my legs are on fire. 

Black White and Blue Perfect

There are times when I refer to the energy measurements known to man like amperage, horsepower, candle power, watts and BTU’s. All of them come to mind when I watch the dynamic Blue Sapphire take over mission control in #41.  She (to coin a colloquial phrase) had it all going on this morning.  Carolyn has very distinctive features and facets of her personality in spin.  She has of course those blue gemstone eyes that flash a warning we are headed for either a challenging speed interval or a heavy mountain climb. Then there are those baton like arms of hers that direct our movement in and out of the saddle and expand our effort when the resistance wheel is calling us for a turn to the right. And then there is that lilting voice of hers, that could give buoyancy to a sunken ship. Today however, she added something more. It was her generous helpings of that trademark comet white smile, which made the Herculean effort we need for hill climbs conquerable. 

I have been on quite a few spin excursions with the Blue Sapphire, but today was 20 out of 10. I had fun, I smiled more than I ever do and I felt as if all of us were feeding off the collective energy we seemed to be generating from the choreography of this extremely talented female. We of “Hello Sunday” had a BLAST today, an all out blast and I want to thank Carolyn’s cardio class in the hour before that saved some of that Blue Sapphire candle power for us in the CS.  

Thank you Carolyn and Sundays will never be the same unless  you are teaching our class. 

The Blue Bullet

She was dressed in black but she was the blue bullet this Sunday morning. Have you ever been shot? Probably not, but this bullet doesn’t wound but still hits the heart.  Carolyn is always a special treat and the week is not complete unless I can catch at least one dose of the blue gemstone. 

The Blue Sapphire takes her work serious but she never takes herself too seriously. When there was a technical snafu with her music, she delightfully provided the bridge of silence with her own rendition of the song. She did it so spontaneously and it reminded me that we are here to work out but also to have fun. I always do on Thursday nights or Sunday morning. 

Carolyn uses a segment of each class to concentrate on the core when she says: “Don’t Bounce.” This takes effort and my legs start to burn when the upper half of my body is frozen out of the action. A great exercise within the exercise of spin class. I also have a love hate relationship with the “up to saddle” intervals as it takes me out of my comfort zone having to make the extra movement on top of the pedal stroke.  Her music is exquisite too. She never stays with one genre either, like the bubble gum top ten of the day and we never hear the same songs over and over. 

Carolyn will switch with Damian this week  as he will take her Thursday and she his Tuesday both at 6 PM.