After limping to the finish line of last month, I've gotten back in the saddle, the bike saddle, that is.

On Friday evening I was doing a domestic chore and I ended up being late for my strictly strength class. I walked in the studio and it was jam packed, not room for me or anyone else. So, I decided that I would take a quick spin on the recumbant bike. I knew that I would be doing spin class at 9:30 on Saturday morning, so I decided that a hard 30 minute workout would be sufficient. In 30 minutes, I burned 475 calories, which represents a lot harder pace than I used to do. It made me think that (a) I've really come a long way in the fitness department and (b) isn't that a better pace than I have in the class? Now, to be fair, I used the calorie counter on the bike itself and not my Polar heart meter.

This morning, I took in the 90 minute spin class with the Poler heart meter on. Wow, was that an eye opener. In the past, I had mentioned that I felt like I couldn't finish, but at about the 45 minute mark, I felt like I had gotten a second wind. Yep, we worked very hard up to the 45 minute mark and I peaked at 162 BPM. Then, we backed off for a couple of minutes and I was back down to about 125 BPM. I was very happy to see how fast I could recover. From there, we built back up and I was strong right to the end of the 90 minutes. I stopped the meter and checked the calorie total. Whoa. 1286 calories burned. I was extremely hapy with that.

I only do the 90 minute class on Saturdays, so that doesn't happen all the time, but if I'm burning almost 1300 calories on that workout, I might need to eat more than 1800 calories. I came home and ate my lunch and I'm feeling pretty good right now. I have some home projects that Miss SBG and I are going to accompllish. Tonight, I will take my bride out for Valentine's dinner. I hope to maintain a reasonable level of consumption, but with that big workout, I'm feeling good about today.

That makes two workouts and two nights with at least 7 hours of sleep.