Thursday weights, spinning

I will continue to have unseemly gloating about HOW MUCH I LOVE MY NEW GYM MEMBERSHIP. Really it is ridiculous - I would basically just be there all the time if I could...

I had the last of my four free sessions with trainer A. It was very good - we did an hour of weights, triathlon-specific. Really the problem with strength training for me is that while I enjoy it as I am actually doing it, it does not mentally have me in any kind of thrall - I would always rather have a spin [ED. Correction - that was meant to say SWIM!] or a run or go to a good yoga class or what have you. But I am fully persuaded of the benefits, and I think that it would be wise to make strength training a priority in December and January. They have these Freemotion machines I have not used before, certainly not necessary but useful - we did a bunch of stuff I know I should do a lot more regularly, like one-legged squats and reverse lunges, but there was also a very interesting hamstring exercise (using one of these Freemotion machines) where you rotate the leg as though you were cycling...

Then I went to a really fantastic spinning class! Lauren had told me Dolores was very good, and I thoroughly see it - it's a great workout, and so much lower-impact than running, too. There were only eight or nine people in the class, so we got a ton of individual attention - she gave me some very useful coaching on form stuff (body position, that thing I am always needing to work on of really pulling up on the upstroke as well as pushing on the downstroke with the quads). The Keiser bike is very nice indeed, but especially cool is the plethora of data on the computer! You get watts and mileage as well as RPM; and best of all, though I was not wearing my HR monitor strap, she said that if I would wear it next time she would help me work out my proper Friel HR zones so that I can just 'dial in' (as they say) my Ironman training - this will be incredibly helpful. The whole class was very specifically oriented in terms of cadence, gear, watts, etc. - it really was excellent, I've got to go to a lot more of these classes as soon as my time gets a bit more flexible again!

1 hr. strength
1 hr. spin (24 miles)
9 miles bike to and from gym