A Spin Class And An Obsessive Personality

I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I have an obsessive personality.

When I first discovered running, I immediately started training for a half marathon. When I find a particular food I like, I have to eat it all the time. I can't just read books, I have to own them and they have to live on my shelves in a particular order according to an organizational system that I devised myself and honed with a religious zeal.

I come by this phenomenon naturally. My mom has it, and so do both of my sisters, so whenever any of us get into an obsessive cycle, we just give into it and laugh it off and wait for the crazy to pass. 

So it came as no surprise to me that once I went to my first spin class and loved it, I desperately needed to go to a million more, like, yesterday. For a few minutes I even considered a regular Soulcycle habit, but with the $34 per class price-tag and the knowledge that the more I went the more I would want to go, my better angels prevailed and I started hunting around for a cheaper option.

I found it in the New York Sports Club near my house where there are at least 4 spin classes a day, every day, and as long as you pay your relatively reasonable monthly membership fee you can go to as many as you want.

I was never someone who particularly loved to exercise. I viewed it as mostly drudgery; something you do because you have to, kind of like brushing your teeth or taking out the garbage. But when I discovered running I started to understand why people actually like getting up at the crack of dawn and moving their bodies in strange and unnatural ways. And now that I have discovered spin, exercise has taken on an entirely new meaning.

Sitting in a dark, crowded and stiflingly hot room with music blasting while an instructor yells at you doesn't seem like it would make for a very good time, but it really, really does. I never really thought of myself as a gym person, but it turns out that there really is something to exercising while surrounded by hundreds of like-minded people.

Or maybe it doesn't and there isn't, and I'm just a glutton for punishment, in an obsessive way of course.

But this is one obsession that shows no signs of abating any time soon. I know this because during the Academy Awards this past Sunday night Pharrell got up and performed his song Happy from Despicable Me 2. And while I loved that the performance was so great and I really loved him getting the likes of Lupita, Meryl and Amy Adams shimmying, what I really loved was the fact that Happy is the warm up song in my Sunday morning spin class and when he started singing I could actually feel my feet pedaling, as if I was sitting in the class.

So call me crazy, or call me obsessive. It's ok. I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm both.

But while I tell you, I'll probably be spinning.