I love my class!

Here’s my ADD recap of last night’s super awesome class.  I do love my class but sometimes I wonder if I’m professional enough to teach.  Today a few examples popped up back-to-back after class.

To student A:  “So happy to see you back, you were gone so long I didn’t think you loved me anymore!”

From student B:  “that new drill was horrible, absolutely killer’

Me: “So I’ll put you down in the keep it, let’s do it again category”

Student B, laughing and looking guilty: “You know me so well”

Student C: “Dude, that drill was AWESOME.  Definitely a keeper.  And on the plus side when you need to punish us for not working hard enough you can just pull it out of your back pocket”.

**my note on this one – I shouldn’t be punishing them!

All in all they are so funny and I love bantering with them.  I got some mad props from a first timer who I helped out before and during class.  She was very grateful and so sweet.  I hope to see her back.  When we were talking about her other class options I mentioned another teacher who would be very helpful with her but that my students aren’t crazy about her.  She said “my guess is her class is not nearly as hard as yours – you attract some really strong people!”.  Wow, she hit the nail on the head with that one 🙂

One of my guys is going in for surgery next week so I intentionally put in his Billy Idol request.  I forgot he’s a big STP fan.  Post class he was raving – “Billy Idol, then STP followed by Free Bird, it doesn’t get any better than that!”.  So happy I could send him on to his surgery on a high note.

Today’s workout fun:

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
U2	Beautiful Day	4:08	Warm-up
The Killers	Bones	3:47	Standing run with pushes
Billy Idol	White Wedding	4:09	Booty Backs
Stone Temple Pilots	Vasoline	2:56	Sprints on the chorus
Lynyrd Skynyrd	Free Bird	9:09	5 minute climb into Sprint Ladders
Shinedown	Devour	3:50	Sprint Ladders: 10 on / 50 off 20 on / 40 off 30 on / 30 off 40 on / 20 off 50 on / 10 off 40 on / 20 off 30 on / 30 off 20 on / 20 off 10 on / 50 off 1 minute sprint
Dropkick Murphy’s	Perfect Stranger	1:58
Creedence Clearwater Revival	Bad Moon Rising	2:21	Recover
Pink	Blow Me (One Last Kiss)	3:49	Recover / Run / Sprint with the music
Bon Jovi	Born To Be My Baby	4:39	New “The Stairs” Climbing Drill: – :30 seated 8 – :30 standing push, as heavy as safely possible Repeat until the song ends
Switchfoot	Mess of Me	3:28	Sprints on the chorus.  Last drill was so hard I gave them the option of sitting out the first one
Foo Fighters	What Did I Do?/God As My Witness	5:43	Rolling Hill.  Seated 8 into a standing fast climb.  Then a seated 9 into a standing heavy climb.
U2	One	4:38	Cool-down
REM	Night Swimming	4:50	Stretching

TdF, Stage 20

I just have to say it again – I love my class!  They get me out of bed early on Saturday mornings, looking forward to working with them.  I really do love it!

Wow, today’s profile was BRUTAL!  I had to ease up on it a bit – if I squint I see a nice flat area in the big hill so I added a brief break for them there.  I also made the sprints / downhills a bit easier then usual just to give our poor legs a breather.  Our red team won – again.  They almost swept it, green only won once!  2 more Tour water bottles were given in a drawing.  I’m going to miss the tour workouts.

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
Blue October	Sway	4:47	Warm-up
Volbeat	A Warrior’s Call	4:22	Booty Backs
Bonnie Tyler	Holding Out For a Hero	5:21	Slight Down – :20/:20/:20s
Dave Matthews Band	Crush	8:09	UP!
Haik Naltchayan	Monaco	1:35	Slight relief / break
Metallica	Nothing Else Matters	6:27	UP!
Rise Against	Tragedy + Time	4:21	Down – Sprints on the Chorus
The Killers	A Dustland Fairytale	3:46	Short break
			Down faster and faster with the music
Aerosmith	Eat The Rich	4:11	Fast Flat – :20/:20/:20s
Haik Naltchayan	The Will of a Man	1:31	Intro to the End
Guns ‘n Roses	Sympathy For The Devil	7:36	UP!
Bad Company	Shooting Star	6:06	Cool-down
Cold Play	Fix You	4:54	Stretching

TdF, Stage 17

Sadly it was our last Wednesday evening TdF class for 2015.  We had a great showing tonight and NO MIC!!!  UGH!!!  We did though.  When I asked my team captains (who had missed the other rides) to be the captains they were hesitant.  One went so far as to tell me he heard his wife calling.  I promised them it would be fun and after class they were beaming, saying they had so much fun!  I had some new girls in the corner and they were very skeptical of the idea but after class they said it was great.  Just trust me people 🙂

I’m still suffering from running a mountainous marathon with little run training so I was on and off the bike and I did not participate in the sprints, just orchestrated them.  I also used the first climb to get a list of names and teams for our post-class raffle.  2 lucky winners got TdF water bottles.

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
Coldplay	Viva La Vida	4:04	Warm-up
Dire Straights	Walk of Life	4:12	Booty Backs
The Killers	Spaceman	5:20	Fast Flat – :20/:20/:20s
Beyonce Cover – 50 Shades of Gray	Crazy in Love	3:10	Short and Steep Hill
Nine Inch Nails	The Hand that Feeds	3:30	Down into a standing fast climb
Theory of a Deadman	Bad Girlfriend	3:24	Down – :20 on :20 off sprints
Pink Floyd	Comfortably Numb	6:22	Longer Steep Hill
The Airborne Toxic Event	Gasoline	3:21	Down – :20 on :20 off sprints
Guns N Roses	November Rain	8:58	Longest Steep Hill
Creedence Clearwater Revival	Fortunate Son	3:33	Down – :30 on, :30 off sprints
INTRO TO THE END
Shinedown	Simple Man	4:25	Climb
Train	Meet Virginia	6:00	Cool-down
Guided By Voices	Hold On Hope	3:36	Stretching

Tour de France, Stage 11

July is simply flying!  I only have 2 more tour classes left after this 😦  Now that we are later in the tour, it’s getting HILLY!  As if timing 2 teams and keeping everyone on track isn’t hard enough, my team captains today were Ray and Grant.  That wouldn’t be a problem if Ray were not the captain of the GReen team and GRant the captain of the Red team.  So confusing!

We had fun racing and climbing through this profile.  And I came home from the concert with some new song ideas.  Yay!

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
Rocky Theme Song		4:50	Warm-up
Train	Hey, Soul Sister	3:36	Booty Backs
Bonnie Tyler	Holding Out For a Hero	5:21	Long Fast Flat (:20/:20/:20s)
The Struts	Could Have Been Me	3:15	Standing Fast Climb
Dropkick Murphy’s	Perfect Stranger	1:58	Quick Downhill
Shinedown	I’ll Follow You	3:58	Short Hill
Good Charlotte	The Anthem	2:54	Fast Flat
Metallica	Nothing Else Matters	6:27	Super Steep Climb, moderately long
David Garrett	Zorba’s Dance	2:33	Speed Down
Led Zeppelin	Kashmir	8:28	Super Steep, Super Long Climb
Bad Religion	Stranger than Fiction	2:19	Fast sharp downhill
The Airborne Toxic Event	Timeless	4:42	Short Uphill to the End
Rolling Stones	Can’t Always Get What You Want	4:49	Cool-down
Blue October	My Never	3:46	Stretching

TdF: Stage 8

It happened again!  One of my favorite moments since I have been teaching was having a guy come up to me after class looking like a kid who’d just gotten off a roller coaster.  Wide eyed and exhausted and telling me how awesome class was.  Today I got it again!  A younger girl with that exact same look told me how much she loved the class.  I get feedback often, but that look is priceless.

My teaching however, was a bit sub-par today.  My first bike broke and locked itself on a 6.  Just not safe to do any standing.  The knob wouldn’t turn at all!  So during Sound of Madness I cued them while switching out bikes.  It’s such a distraction but I didn’t feel safe riding that bike the whole class.  That worked for a while when during Bleed Out the new bike locked itself on a 9!!!  I could turn the resistance knob forever but it was locked in tight.  SO, I cued them through the fast stuff and suffered through – dang my legs were cooked!

Our last song Suzanne won it for the Green Team, they are finally on the board!!  I printed up the winners board I created below and put their color sticker and the winner’s name.  It’s on the wall outside the room, I’m going to promote it as bragging rights 🙂

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
U2	Where the Streets Have No Name	5:38	Warm-up with jumps at the end
Volbeat	A Warrior’s Call	4:22	Booty Backs
The Killers	Mr Brightside	3:42	Fast Flat
Shinedown	Sound of Madness	3:54	Standing Fast Climb
Foo Fighters	DOA	4:12	Fast Flat
Blue October	Bleed Out	3:54	Steep Long Climb
Bond	Explosive	3:24	Quick Down
AWOL Nation	Hallow Man	4:20	Standing Fast Climb
Billy Joel	Scenes From An Italian Restaurant	7:37	Quick up
			Fast flat
			Down / fast flat
			Short up
REM	End of the World	4:05	Fast Flat
Haik Naltchayan	Monaco	1:35	Intro to the end
Motley Crue	Home Sweet Home	3:59	Steep Up to the End
The Killers	Romeo and Juliet	5:28	Cool-down
REM	Night Swimming	4:50	Stretching

Loving it!

2015 Tour, Stage 5, here we GO!!!

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
Styx	The Grand Illusration	4:37	Warm-up
Train	Driveby	3:17	Pushes on chorus
Billy Idol	Dancing With Myself	3:22	Booty Backs
Blue October	Drop	4:36	Rolling Hill (2-3 Peaks)
The Airborne Toxic Event	Sometime Around Midnight	5:03	Heavy start into a flat road run
The Killers	A Dustland Fairytale	3:46	Quick up then down
Finger Eleven	Paralyzer	3:25	Slight Uphill – Standing fast climb
Bruce Springsteen	Born to Run	4:30	Long Fast Flat
Papa Roach	Kick in the Teeth	3:11	Slight Uphill – Standing fast climb
Deep Purple	Fireball	3:21	Fast Flat
Shinedown	Second Chance	3:40	UP!
Dropkick Murphy’s	Sunday Hardcore Matinee	2:43	Flat into downhill
Haik Nalchayan	Monaco	1:35	Intro to the finale
Seether	Careless Whisper (Strings Version)	4:24	Rolling Hill to the end
Bruce Springsteen	Glory Days	4:18	Cool-down
Gary Jules	Mad World	3:02	Stretching

It’s Tour Time!

The tour is here, the tour is here!!!!

I do have a confession, I do not actually watch nor care much about the tour.  I do like that it brings some life into my classes.  It’s hard to keep things interesting when we only have a few moves: run / sprint / climb / recover.  Stand or sit.  That’s it.  So adding an element of competition brings my class to life.

I printed up some flyers with the dates I’d be teaching BEFORE I accepted to teach Monday night’s class.  I debated doing a tour ride or not.  I never write new classes when I sub AND it wasn’t listed on my tour flyer.  But I thought I could maybe recruit some folks by adding it in.  I pulled up a profile from last year and grabbed my decorations.  Let me say I am SO happy I did, I walked in and one of my regulars yelled “YAY! We get a tour ride today”.  So it’s a very good thing I did it.  Before I go into the ride I have to say that we have ghetto bikes.  There is absolutely no feedback on them so there’s no real way to compete on them.  It’s all in our heads.

Anyway…they were broken into 2 groups (I put colored stickers on their bikes) and for extra funzies this year I added a 1 minute instrumental song before the last song.  Before class I had chosen a team captain for each team and told the captains the rules.  During the 1 minute song I had everyone recover while I explained the team captain rules.  The captains raised their hands as I introduced them.  The last song was 5 min, 30 sec.  And a climb.  I was in charge of the rolling resistance.  The captain’s job was to take off when ready.  If they took off before the other captain AND held it to the end their team won.  Once they took off the entire class had to try to catch them.  If they couldn’t hold it to the end the other team won. 

Y’all, the winner took off early while we were on a 10!!!  Max resistance and he bolted for it.  I actually felt like an announcer, he caught me by surprise and I couldn’t hide it, yelling with excitement into the mic!  We kept rolling, legs on fire and he held it to the end.  As I awarded him a small little trophy and announced him the winner the class all cheered.  Post class he normally heads out, this time he stayed and was discussing his tactics and how well it worked.  One of his teammates commented to me that he was so glad they won because they had fewer people on their team putting them at a disadvantage.  Ha!  I didn’t have the heart to tell him there is no drafting on indoor bikes, nor do we have any feedback metrics on those bikes to know who really wins, number of teammates really doesn’t matter in this case.  I told that same guy that he’s on my list of team captains in a later ride and he got all excited.  They get so competitive on these rides, it just cracks me up 🙂

I do love my class, but Tour time brings it out even more-so!

I used Stage 17 of 2014’s tour for the ride:

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout	Tour Profile
The Killers	All These Things That I’ve Done	5:02	Warm-Up
Switchfoot	Mess of Me	3:28	Standing runs or pickups on chorus
Mumford and Sons	Little Lion Man	4:05	Booty-Backs
Bruce Springsteen	Born to Run	4:30	Fast run. Dig deep to hit it hard!	Flat and Fast
Bon Jovi	Raise Your Hands	4:18	Standing Run	Very slight incline
Cinderella	Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)	5:39	Climb	Hill!
Led Zeppelin	Rock and Roll	3:41	Run Down	Down
Guns ‘n Roses	Sympathy For The Devil	6:17	Big Hill	Bigger, steeper hill
Foo Fighters	The Last Song	3:20	Run Down	Down
Shinedown	Second Chance	3:42	Steep Hill	Hill!
Dropkick Murphy’s	Captain Kelly’s Kitchen	2:48	Fastest downhill of the day	Down
Kid Rock	Only God Knows	5:27	Climb to the end	Hill!
The Killers	Romeo and Juliet	5:28	Cool-down
Elton John	Tiny Dancer	6:16	Stretching

Happy 4th of July!

We had so much fun this morning with our America themed workout!  The plan was if they sang along on Coming to America (they just had to yell out the “todays”) the class would be easier.  They did NOT play along, and kept looking at my guiltily.  So I told them they had 10s today.  So the class was 3 big hills.  The last song, they had to sing along on the chorus.  If they did, they got to choose what we did until the next chorus.  If not, I got to choose.  They all started singing and laughing.  Post class they said they loved the music and the class.  One lady I didn’t recognize came up and asked “you’re the teacher who did the Ironman workout, aren’t you?”  when I smiled and said yes she said how amazing my classes are.  I have certainly set the bar too high with those 2 being the only classes she’s been to!

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
Brad Paisley	American Saturday Night	4:34	Warm-up
John Mellencamp	R.O.C.K. In The USA	2:54	Pushes on chorus
Neil Diamond	Coming to America	3:32	Booty Backs
Melissa Etheridge	All American Girl	4:05	Standing Fast Climb
Bruce Springsteen	Born in the USA	4:40	Heavier Climb
Agent Orange	America	1:21	Run Down or pushes on the chorus
Green Day	Last of the American Girls	3:51	Standing or Seated (their choice) Endurance Climb
U2	The Hands That Built America	4:35	Heavy Climb
Dropkick Murphy’s	Cadence to Arms	1:50	RUN!
One Direction	Kids in America	2:18	Break
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band;	American Storm	4:18	:20/:20/:20s
Big Jack Johnson	It’s the 4th of July	2:56	Blues climb. Seated adding resistance every minute
Don McLean	American Pie	8:32	Rolling Hill – dependent on them singing along on “Bye bye Miss American Pie…”
Lynyrd Skynyrd	Sweet Home Alabama	4:45	Cool-down
Simon & Garfunkel	America	3:35	Stretching

Rave Reviews

This workout got rave reviews from all ages!  One member said he loved that I’m not afraid to make them push heavy hills, he said that a lot of instructors are.  I work on form leading into them, but once they have the form down we get to work in my class!

Artist	Song Name	Song Length	Workout
Boston	Peace of Mind	5:03	Warm-up
Billy Idol	Rebel Yell	3:45	Standing run with pushes
Poison	Nothin’ But A Good Time	3:42	Booty Backs
Aerosmith	Eat The Rich	4:11	:20/:20/:20s
Bon Jovi	Raise Your Hands	4:18	:30/:30 sprints
Arctic Monkeys	Do I Wanna Know	4:30	Climb with Pushes on the chorus
Foo Fighters	Something From Nothing	4:48	Slow until :45, Picks up slightly then slows down again. 1:30 starts picking up. Up and down. Intense at 3:00. Start standing run! 4:00 way too fast, simply flying until the end
Billy Joel	Scenes From An Italian Restaurant	7:37	break into :20/:20/:20s
Papa Roach	Lifeline	4:06	Standing Fast Climb
Guns ‘n Roses	Sympathy For The Devil	7:36	Awesome Hill
The Killers	Romeo and Juliet	5:28	Cool-down
Eddie Vedder	You’ve got to Hide Your Love Away	3:20	Stretching