Climbing With a Head Wind

Both Renee Morris and Sherrie Medina have debuted as our new substitute spin instructors at Foothills. I was unable to be there for Renee's ride on Wednesday morning but from all that I hear it went very well! I'm sorry I missed it!

I did, however, go on Thursday when Sherrie taught the first half of Jody's 5:45 pm class. She rode us through a nice range of drills from climbing with a headwind to rolling hills with some speed and a nice spin downhill after a very steep climb. It was 30 minutes well spent!

I asked Sherrie about how she developed the ride. "I started with the music" she said, finding, what she called, “hard working music" that provided the perfect down beat for a serious climb. Then she plotted out the drills that she knew she wanted to use.

Beyond the obvious physical test of being conversational during a strenuous workout, Sherrie told me the biggest personal challenge she faced was overcoming her shyness. She said that while she is accustomed to exercising her body, its her public speaking that doesn't get much of a work out. Participating the Foothills 12-week challenges really informed how Sherrie approaches teaching spin. She set the goal figuring out how to do it and moves toward that goal, steadily and without looking back.

After we talked for a while Sherrie started to imagine different modes of delivering rides, as a teacher. “I always thought it would be cool,” she said, “to video tape a road ride from the perspective of the rider then project that on a screen as I taught the profile in the spin class.” Multi-media rides? You know I like that idea!