VD

Valentine's Day seems to be a really big holiday for people who are dating, but less so for the rest of the world.  For us, it's usually an exchange of cards, flowers and sometimes chocolate for me, and some type of event for us -- special dinner, a show, whatever.  Most of all, lots of extra "I love you"s, shmoopy texts, kisses, and hugs. 


This year, we decided to get tickets to Shen Yun.  We went the weekend before last and it was an experience.  The dancing was amazing, and we each had favorite pieces (my husband liked the Tibetan drummers, I liked the yellow blossom dance), but we were both very surprised that about 2-3 of the 12-15 dance vignettes seemed to be very anti-Chinese government.  We were totally clueless walking in!  The website has details about how the performance company believes China's government is trying to make the company fail (and the Chinese government's opposition to Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa)).  But we didn't know any of that going into it, we just expected a 2-3 hour dance performance.  Anyway, politics aside (not that I'm sweeping any issue under the rug, I just know it's quite complicated), the dancing was lovely and it was nice VD celebration for us to be all dressed up and out together, whispering in our box about propaganda, whether we were being recruited, memories of when we were in China...


So when it got to be Sunday night this past weekend, my husband asked what we were going to do for the actual day of VD.  Since that meant we had no reservations, I suggested he come to a spin class with me.  And he agreed!  He usually hates working out at night, and while he loves biking, he's not big on spin, but in the interest of making me happy and ensuring we got to do something together on the actual night, he packed up his biking clothes. 


So I went to my second spin class of the year (also second spin class of the last 5+ years), on Valentine's Day, with my sweetest. 


Why spin?  Well, it's being taught by the great Megan Lyons!  At a fun studio, Grit.  If anyone can convince me to spin, it's Megan.  She's a great instructor and I might stick with it on at least a somewhat consistent basis (at least a couple classes per month hopefully) (of course it's very easy to say that since my work travel doesn't start for another month...).  Anyway, my first class was solely an effort to survive.  Megan's sister had given me some tips and I mostly kept the tension off and just tried to move my legs.  But for the VD class, I actually tried harder.  I'm not going to deny that there were multiple times my RPMs were below what she had set as the floor for the class, and I'm sure I always had the tension lower than it should have been, but baby steps!  I managed to get 13 miles in during the course of the class!