Fitness blog: Entry 3 Studio cycling

So, unsurprisingly, studio cycling was very different to my previous two classes.

It took me a while just to work out how to use the bike, but luckily the other people in the class were very friendly so I didn't have to make a fool of myself for too long.

After lowering my seat to the right level and adjusting the resistance to what I thought it should be I jumped on. That first second on the bike made me realised how much pain I was going to be in the next day....and I was.

It wasn't like any other moving or stationary bike I had ever been on. There were no buttons to press and the seat was a lot more painful. Fortunately I bumped into a friend (she does five fitness classes a week!) so I got to have a little chat in the breaks.

The class wasn't too full - probably because it started at 6.15pm on a Friday - but don't let that fool you. It was still pretty hard.

I stupidly sat right next to the speaker so I had loud dance music pumping into my ears the whole way through the class, which was very annoying.

The 45-minute session basically involved everyone following the instructor and turning their resistance dials up, but occasionally down - fortunately.

We alternated between sitting, standing, hovering (basically that means standing but not moving your top half) and normal cycling but without actually having your bum on the seat. It was mainly two minutes of hard cycling - pretending you were cycling up a hill - and then a short water break. However, towards the end of the class we had to do eight minutes with no rest. That almost killed me.

Most of the time I ended up just watching my stomach hoping it would get smaller by the end of the class, but funnily enough, there was no change.

As I haven't exercised in a while I decided not to push myself too much because I was actually quite scared I would faint. Don't get me wrong, I did sweat a fair amount, but my legs weren't aching the next day - a clear sign I hadn't working hard enough.

I was horribly sweaty by the end of the class, but I didn't exactly find it fun.

I think my next challenge will be Step at Highgrove