How addicted am I to spinning? I just did 105 minutes. I love it. Image courtesy of duron123 and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I woke up this morning feeling great and decided to ease my way back into my workout schedule.  After my leg stretches I headed off to the gym thinking I’d do an hour of yoga and about 15 minutes on a bike. If my knee felt great, then I’d try the Thursday spin class.

That was the plan…and it got shot to hell once I hit the gym.

Yoga was awesome, as usual. The poses weren’t overly stressful for my knee and after class I felt great.

For some reason I wondered over to the Zumba class across the hall.  I ducked in, but just seconds into watching the bouncy moves common sense took over. Realizing my knee couldn’t take the dance movements just yet, I headed down to the spin room.

I had 45 minutes before the next spin class, so I saddled up and did a few rotations. My knee felt great. I slapped on the headphones and started pedaling to the rockin’ sounds of Led Zeppelin and Rush.

I felt great 15 minutes in and decided to go another 15. I figured I’d get 5 miles in and then I’d do more stretching and call it a day.

The next thing I knew the class started and I’m still pedaling. I quickly turned off my music, took off the headphones, and stayed for class.

D’oh!

I already cycled for 45 minutes — 30 minutes longer than I intended. Sure I felt great and I knew I shouldn’t push it. But that blasted little voice in my head said, “You’ve been cooped up far too long. Just 60 minutes more. Time to really work out.”

So much for easing my knee back into the swing of things.  I even upped my resistance between levels 5-9.

Thankfully cycling doesn’t put pressure on my knees.  An added bonus during class: my instructor adjusted my seat (I was too low) and it was like my first 45 minutes never happened. Sweet!

I felt great and loved every minute of it, until the 100-minute mark. Just as we started our cool down my knee started to ache. Slowing the pace helped, but I needed to stretch.

Once we hit the stretching section, I quickly got off the bike and started working on that knee.

A few stretches later and I felt great.

I’m home now and icing up the knee as a precaution. I’ll find out soon enough if the extra spin time was worth it.