Spinning tonight
Every now and then, a spinning session is leaves me feeling happy – an exercise high that lasts. It helps when I arrive in plenty of time, so I’m not rushing to set up the bike and can do loosen my legs before the proper warm-up. It also helps to have had a constructive day before the session. This morning I did a load of long-overdue filing, the end-of-week alternative-location TimeMachine backup of our working macs, wrapped and boxed a lot of things to send to Worcester and wrote up some notes from the Centre for Social Informatics get-together on Friday. And much as I hate to admit it, getting a lift to spinning means I’m not panicked from slaloming around the low-lying manhole-covers that litter Ferry Road.

Tonight was another of Martin’s ‘Sunday Sundowners’, with the music changed to include some requests. The class has grown a bit – there were 6 folk the first time we went but it’s grown to 10 tonight.

I appreciate the pattern of 3- to 5- minute workpieces interspersed with 30 to 60 seconds of recovery. (I prefer the Ski Sunday theme for the recovery periods.) The workpieces start with a relatively challenging baseline for 60 seconds or so, before increasing the intensity (by increasing cadence, resistance or getting into a more challenging stance – sometimes all three). Then the intensity might get harder, or go back to baseline, before another increased-intensity minute.

Because I know that in a recovery period is never more than 5 minutes away, I can put more into each workpiece. Also, I enjoyed a lot of tonight’s music – the right tempos to pound the pedals without fearing falling over when running.

The only glitch tonight was due to me misinterpreting Martin’s comment that there were just two tracks to go – I thought both of those would be workpieces rather than being one workpiece followed by a warm-down, so I didn’t quite put everything into the first of these two. Ah well, it meant I was capable of speech not long after we finished!

No prizes for guessing how I know about this:

A Consultation on Tax Management

This is a consultation document seeking views on the structure and powers for Revenue Scotland, ensuring tax compliance, tackling tax avoidance, resolving tax disputes, treatment of taxpayer information and accelerated tax changes.

While Revenue Scotland has only two taxes to collect (Scottish equivalents of UK Stamp Duty Land Tax and Landfill Tax) and won’t start collecting these for a while yet*, it presumably would collect all taxes** in an independent Scotland.

You have probably missed the associated consultation on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax but you still have time to comment on the Scottish Landfill Tax.

You have been warned advised!

*mostly because Revenue Scotland didn’t even exist until after the 2012 Scotland Act
**apart from VAT, of course – that’s collected by all the traders in the chains that get products and services to you. (HMRC is responsible for compliance, enforcement, appeals and so on. I presume that Revenue Scotland would take over these duties in an independent Scotland.)

I’d failed to do anything wheeled since Monday night’s spinning session (I don’t count cycling to and from Cramond or to and from Napier – both journeys are under 5 miles, especially the trip to Napier), I was happy to try the Sunday Sundowner spinning session, led by the one and only Martino. Elly’s exercise quotient for this week had also been severely reduced by work-stress – she’s not been home before 8pm and a couple of times wasn’t home until well after 10pm.

So after a fairly lazy day (lunch at Nando’s – I even wimped out on the extra hot sauce – and a movie*) we were ready to face the challenges Mr R might throw at us. I don’t know whether this evening was typical of Martin’s sessions but I echo Elly’s comment that it was fun, with really clear instruction. Martin’s voice came through very well, with much more than a hint of fun and encouragement. He dealt even very well with an involuntary heckle from my digestive system.

There wasn’t a scenario or theme holding the session together but this absence wasn’t a bad thing. Instead, each track was a self-contained unit of work: a climb, a time-trial, a sprint or similar. All of these were spilt into relatively long sub-units. So a track might be 60 seconds at fast cadence, then 60 to 120 seconds of faster cadence or running (or both!), followed by either an similar interval back at the original work-load or a higher work-load, just to push us that little harder.

The intervals felt longer than I’m used to and I’m not good a sustaining high cadences, so, in retrospect, working on these aspects was very welcome. (At the time, I just gritted my teeth and swore silently at my legs to stop moaning: my right knee and thigh grumbled noticeably during the session, so I wasn’t able to push as hard as I’d have liked.) Ah well, next time! Overall, it was fun – good craic, a very small class (only 8 of us – a great shame for those who missed out) and so lots of personal encouragement. Top marks to Martin for including the Stranglers’ exquisite cover of Walk on by – play it loud!

And so I have to echo Arnie. This might mean spinning 4 evenings in a row each week until I’m ready for the Tour o’ the borders – can my gear and our washing machine take it? And here’s a thought for a post TotB challenge: to do and blog about every spin session Lifescycle offers at least once. Not quite sure about doing them all in the same week: 17·25 hours of sweaty fun!

*Silver Linings Playbook: a romantic comedy(?) set around mental illness – it was reminiscent of things I’d sooner not go into here. Let’s just say that the script and direction felt quite close to the knuckle.

Great to see folks in St Andrews yesterday. I chose to cycle there but stuffed up a few times:

• In Inverkeithing, I saw a sign for Kirkcaldy. It turned out this would have taken me onto the M90.
• I turned too soon in Kirkcaldy.
• Seeing a sign for St Andrews, I took the A915, instead of continuing onto the A92, and hence groaned my way over Largo Law. Ah well, it was good for hill-training. I don’t think I’ll ever be Knave of the Mountains, let alone King.

jPhone ran out of juice at Lathockar, thus missing the final 7·8 miles. Cyclemeter recorded 42·24 miles in 3 hours 31 minutes (average speed 11·97 mph). I started at 10am and arrived just after 2:30. Cyclemeter recorded 28 minutes’ stopped time, so the final 7·8 miles must have taken just over 30 minutes.

Cyclemeter recorded my flit to Leuchars. Thanks to Jane Ann for warning about the bad surface. I don’t like unlit cyclepaths at the best of times, so I used the road.

‘Programming’ coursework for the current module is constructing a ‘prototype application’ in MS Abcess. Unless I start mucking around in VBA, there will be no real programming at all. Disappointed.

Under 10 mph on the way to Napier
Only 13 mph on the way home

Not pleased with either.

or not, as the case may be. Spinning tonight was hard. I’d not slept well (you can guess why) and my legs were feeling the after-effects of pushing hard in Josh’s class last night. I got through this class, nowhere near the cadences I wanted, by gritting my teeth so hard that 3 hours later my rear molars are complaining.

I hope no-one overheard me cussing my thighs to move faster and swearing at the sensations in my hips. On the way home, Elly pulled ahead of me up Orchard Brae – I had no power to keep up with her.  jPhone ran out of charge so I didn’t log times and speeds and I’m rather glad.

Ah well, 6 months ago I’d get home after my sole weekly spinning class too drained to even stand up, let alone speak. Now I’m able to get on with stuff, even after spinning 3 nights in a row. All the same, I’m not looking forward to getting up for tomorrow’s 9am lecture.

(Music to sympathise with Elly’s sore neck: the tram tracks attacked her and Fidel last Monday and she’s still suffering.)

There and back again

One of the many appealing things about spinning at Lifescycle is the journey there: it’s only 3·5 miles and is mostly downhill on good tarmac*, a fast road with not too many traffic lights. There’s only one hill (Crewe Road, past the Western General hospital) and I can usually keep above 10 mph there. Tonight I took 13 minutes 50 seconds to travel 3·48 miles (average speed 15·09 mph, fastest speed 28·71 mph), so not as fast as last night.

*that is, good compared to many other areas of Edinburgh where the tarmac has been chewed by teamwork-induced over-use, bus-wheel torque and lack of decent maintenance.

The journey home wasn’t anything like fun – wind and rain in my face, in addition to quite, er, exercised legs, contributed to an average speed of 8·47 mph and a fastest speed of only 18·19 mph.

Stand by to repel borders!

Tonight was the first session designed to prepare us for April 2013’s Tour o’ the Borders, a ‘sportive’ over 50 or 80 miles starting and finishing at Peebles, and taking in 5 or 8 hills. Josh and Zara shared the instruction/demo roles, modelling and inspiring ‘jogs’ and ‘runs’. There were no visuals or ‘jumps’*, just 3- or 4- minute tracks at fast but constant cadences, increasing the resistance every 30 seconds or so – with clear instructions about what was to be down, and a lot of encouragement to do it. There were also choices during the standing sections – Josh would demo/inspire running, while Zara did the same for jogging, then they’d swap to give themselves a break and us fresh energy.

*stand on the pedals for 4, 2 or one complete revolution(s), sit for the same amount: repeat many times – I think the idea is that standing is slightly easier because you can use your body-weight, while sitting doesn’t allow this. So the effort required varies on and off. Forcing oneself to stand can be mentally challenging too.

This was a testing but inspiring session – I think I did more jogging than running, and I know I had to back off the resistance after each track or effort, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t achieving the cadences of those around me, let alone the instructors’ paces. Nonetheless, I’m faintly glowing from Josh’s and Jeannie’s encouraging comments after the session. (I think I heard Josh call to check me out about 40 minutes into the session – I was flagging a bit but I was also getting into the exercise-high zone mentally, which is quite were pleasing.)

So I’m looking forward to tomorrow night’s audio-visual back class with Andy (yes, spinning three nights in a row from now until April) and really looking forward to outdoors training and the event itself. I’ve promised myself I’ll do a 100-mile event in 2013, so this will be a good warm-up. I’m even dreaming of doing a triathlon, if and when my shoulder is fixed.

On the way to an appointment this morning, I broke 30mph (fastest speed 31·95 mph) going down Cramond Road South. Exhilarating stuff – if only I could achieve this on flat and uphill stretches. My return journey was almost pedestrian by comparison – as slow as 5mph in places and a pathetic 11·65 mph average speed.

I need to drag Lev and my sorry arse into a velodrome and see what we can do, always assuming they’ll let a road bike sully their surfaces. Failing that, a rolling-road trainer and a handlebar mount for my MacBook would be needed.

On the way to spinning tonight, I did 3·63 miles at an average speed of 15·77 mph (details here).
On the way home, I did 3·71 miles at an average speed of 10·58 mph (details here).

Apart from having spun for an hour, followed by an hour’s attempting to do yoga (I have very little flexibility and can’t take my body-weight on my sit-bones), what caused the differences?

• It’s downhill most of the way to spinning, especially Orchard Brae.
• I’m keen to get there on time.
• The wind didn’t hinder most of the journey to spinning – it was in my face most of the way home.

I’d rather like to get my average speed on the way there over 20 mph and on the way back to over 15mph.

My fastest speed on the way was 24·4 mph, while on the way home I peaked at 20·4 mph. I suspect both of these peaks were achieved on steep downhill sections [Orchard Brae and Crew Road, I guess]. Unfortunately, Cycelmeter doesn’t pinpoint where these peaks are – time for a feature request, I think!

We’ll see what happens tomorrow – I’m going to spinning earlier in the evening, so the traffic may make a difference.