Sunday Perspiration Inspiration - SoulCycle

I've said to some, that you know you have found the right church when you feel a little guilty, like the preacher is talking directly to you. It felt like our Meg at SoulCycle Georgetown had a spotlight on me during our Sunday spin.

First, a little background and a geography lesson. Half of our southern hemisphere Wheelers, the Australian specifically, organized a team event for December 4th at SoulCylce Georgetown and a well-earned brunch to follow. Those of us who would be in town enthusiastically agreed. Lisa was called away to the West coast but that kept up the tradition of the missing-man formation at our workouts.

John and P traveled on their own and I stopped on the way to pick up Wendie. It turns out Wendie had been proving to her friends the night before that Australians can drink all Americans under the table. I mean all Americans collectively. I have no doubt she would have made her countrymen proud and she looked a bit worse for it. I had to tease her but deep down I was proud and impressed that she could make it out for an early, intensive workout as bad as she must have felt. I always had the same philosophy as her, that if I feel lousy because of my own decisions I still keep my commitments. I've only missed that once and it was recently in Miami after a night out that would have killed Batman.

Now for that geography lesson. Georgetown is a relatively small stretch of DC along M Street, marked by a decided lack of Metro stations. It seems much larger because of the time it takes to drive or walk through it due to congestion. Coming in to Georgetown from Rosslyn across the Key Bridge drops you at one end of it. If you continue along M street and, eventually, hit Washington Circle you are no longer in Georgetown, you're in DC proper.

The area around Washington Circle is called West End and it is wonderful. There are many great restaurants, coffee shops, the odd embassy and a SoulCycle. This is SoulCycle West End, not SoulCycle Georgetown, which is also on M street and where we all signed up to ride that morning.

To make a long story shorter, John was the only one who found the correct SoulCycle. Luckily our Brazilian hailed a cab like a pro and we were only five minutes late to our class. This is where the hospitality do SoulCylce really shone.

Apparently the SouldCycle on M (West End) is often mistaken for the Soul Cycle on Wisconsin, frightfully close to M (Georgetown). They offered to let us wait for an opening but since we were committed and 25% of us were already in Georgetown they called Georgetown and let them know three lost souls, as it were, would be arriving late.

We hustled to the right place and the staff worked like a well drilled commando unit. We had shoes in an instant and we each had our own escort with flashlights. We stopped briefly at the lockers and were given quick instructions of what was going to happen.

We were led in to the dark and loud studio, packed with the thin and sweaty, and taken to the only three empty bikes. The three we had reserved. We went quickly through the drill to set up the bikes and in less than a minute we were mounted and with the group. It was impressive, and they either practice for this often or it happens a lot.

We arrived while the warm-up was still going on and John told us later we only missed about five minutes. I was glad this was my third sinning class and second SoulCycle experience so I knew a bit of what to expect.

A spin class is rather limited in what it can do. There's faster, slower, more resistance, and less resistance in addition to the various upper body gymnastics. Being near the back row it was pretty cool to watch because everyone seemed to move in unison except me.

Loud as it was I couldn't hear much. I also had the last remnants of my cold congestion firmly stuffed in my left eustachian tube. I focused on a young woman who looked experienced and was broadside to me, across the room to watch for cues. I'm fairly certain there's a restraining order against "The guy on bike 48" in DC now. I apologize if it seemed like I was ogling. I swear I was only watching for cues, The sweat and panting were completely unrelated.

Meg, for her part, was inspiring. She would jump off her bike and walk around crowd and still give her commands. It was a little like a concert where the audience is on stationary bikes. She had a huge amount of energy and had us interact with our neighbors during the lulls to give encouragement, a little like church. Here's where it started to get personal.

Meg would push us or tell us when it was ok to not do something if we were struggling. This happened several times and exactly when I was starting to struggle. I'm not sure if her vision was so good that she could see me trying to do the upper body moves like a walrus who's had a stroke or if she knew this class was special because a couple of her victims were older than 23 and heavier than 90 pounds, but whatever it was I felt singled out a couple of times and not in a bad way.

During the stretch session at the end I'm almost certain she was talking to me. I had to watch those around me to figure out what I was supposed to do and I thought the first move was a joke. We unclipped and had to bring one leg over the handle bars and stretch down to touch our toes. Our own toes. I saw a few young ladies interlace their fingers under the soles of their feet.

I made an effort, truly. I had my foot almost up to the height of the handle bars and feel like if I could have leaned back on John's bike behind me I might have made it. Since I was genuinely afraid that I'd not be able to get back down if I got the leg up there I just struggled and pleaded for my oil can.

Meg pointed out, often, that if we're having trouble with these stretches we should get in to yoga or at least stretch once in a while and that working muscles are great but the lack of flexibility makes it hard to use them. She's right, of course, and I didn't realize I had gotten so inflexible. They call me the rock not because of my muscles but because I'm as flexible as a rock. I have seen the error of my ways, oh Meg, and I am making time to stretch more (read, "any") after my workouts.

After class we all crowded into the 8X16 cubicle that contains all the lockers. Considering a class of 100 just let out and a class of 100 was just coming in it was a bit claustrophobic. About 10 minutes to get to my locker halfway down and another 10 to get to the front desk when it wouldn't open for me. Again, as busy as they were the young woman who liberated my stuff was understanding and didn't complain a bit. She was also about 5 feet tall and 90 pounds so she easily slipped thorough the crowd as my bulk displaced a considerably lager volume some ways behind her.

By the time I got my gear and got to the men's room there was plenty of space by the showers to change into less sweaty and more appropriate clothes for brunch.

I was proud that Wendie didn't chunder, as it were and, although she didn't seem any perkier, she brought her beast to the workout as always. The whole group didn't hold back one bit and, despite appearances, managed quite well.

After a a couple of tries at other places we landed at Mal Maison (Bad House) for brunch. The food was fantastic and the service was forgiving of the sweaty group of Wheelers with no reservation. They sat us in the middle of the place because clearly, we look like the sort of people other people would want to be around. Could be they just assumed we were famous because who else would show up to a nice, unplanned brunch in that condition. Regardless we were taken care of and well fed.

Afterwards, we made our way to John's car and he graciously took us back to where we all parked on the West End. We had a great opportunity to catch up so we said our hasty good-byes and went our separate ways to find out respective couches for well-earned naps.

The workout and brunch were wonderful but mostly it was nice to do something as a group again. Once you find the right people it doesn't much matter what you do together, it will do more than fill your time, it will fill your life.