Caution: Double Black Diamond

I came to the stark realization that spinning with Michelle Corso  feels like that first time I got up on the high diving board at Slate Lane pool. You know the fear I’m talking about? I could feel it in my solar plexus. Or that time skiing when I edged off the chair lift and saw those double black diamonds indicating the most difficult downhill the mountain offered.  I would peer over and see that steep drop which seemed like it was 90 degrees. It always struck  abject fear in my heart. I felt nearly paralyzed thinking that I was not going to be able navigate the Corso Zone. 

It was within 8 minutes and the sweat was dripping profusely off my brow, faster than at any time during my 7 months on these Schwinn bikes. I finally started to overcome my fear and settled albeit uncomfortably into the ride.  Michelle said she wanted us to “dig deeper” I thought to myself that if I went any deeper I would be pulling up my socks. And as she petitioned us to add turn after turn I was thinking about using the bike next to me.  Of course a little exaggeration but I did have to exaggerate the effort with this supernatural talent. She is technically superb and I can say unabashedly a extraordinary motivator.  I have waxed endlessly about her physiology, and  how I could just see a classroom of kinesiologists having a ball identifying each muscle on the torso of Corso.  

Just as I was looking around the room wondering if I was alone, I could see even the veterans wondering where the next pedal stroke was coming from.  Michelle then launched Pat Benatar’s “Promises in the Dark” and that gave me a fourth wind but by songs end I was hopelessly in the anaerobic zone and gasping for air.  

It was the 830 hour and I wondered why the CS was not filled to capacity and it has to be that members are scared to take this class as I was. I know the element of the personal touch of having your name called out is conspicuously absent and there isn’t the social component that I feel is present in most of the other classes. This is not Michelle Corso’s style from what I can determine. It’s all business with her and that's perfectly fine because she has another fan in me.  It’s double black diamond: Proceed With Caution.