We’ve just done the Sunday Beast: 90 minutes of spinning at medium-hard to hard spinning, finishing with very hard 10-minute sprint. Oddly, I feel much less knackered than after most evening 60-minute sessions. I think it’s possibly because it called for continuity rather than madness – staying in the saddle and pushing, building up resistance and cadence, then coming out of the saddle for extra effort-requirement.

Also, there were very few jumps, and none were less then 8 revolutions out of the saddle, interspersed with 8 in. (Evening sessions tend have groups of 8, immediately followed by groups of 4 then groups of 2, so you’re bobbing up and down like an Essex-girl’s scanties. Also they’re to ridden to much faster beats and more emotionally intense music.)

I should admit I couldn’t achieve the cadences the instructor and other class-members did but they seem to be all serious roadies.The only ill effects I can feel are my left elbow is very painful (but that’s due to my ongoing shoulder problems) and my upper back feels taut. A hot bath should cure those.

I had been dreading this session but I’m slightly disappointed that I won’t be there next week (we’re on holiday in Austria, cycling from Passau to Vienna along the banks of the Danube) to give this session the effort it truly deserves.