One for the outdoors
Kelly Ng
I SWAPPED out 3 sunrise runs for early morning spin classes in the past fortnight and felt like a fish out of water.
The only other time I attempted indoor cycling – or any form of working out indoors, consistently – was during the prolonged South-east Asian haze crisis in September 2015.
The city was shrouded in a thick cloud, the air smelled of ash and coal, and the Pollutant Standards Index hovered between the “unhealthy” and “very unhealthy” range. I signed up for the indoor classes out of desperation.
But they were nothing like this trendy, amped-up phenomenon I was recently introduced to. (A contact at OCBC Cycle kindly extended a 3-session pass at CruCycle Duxton after reading this column.)
Upbeat music, deep lighting, enthusiastic instructors, and the fact that our feet are clipped to the pedals, pretty much keeps one always-working-out in the 45-minute class. There’s barely time to rest on the saddle.
From a calorie-burning perspective, spinning is a super-efficient workout.
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The thumping beats and heart-pumping sequences are also a surefire way to wake yourself up on a weekday morning. I managed to drop a cup of coffee on each of these spinning days because the endorphins keep me going for a good few hours.
Still, I quite missed the opportunity to clear my head, reflect, and muse about life that my outdoor workouts in the quiet of the morning offer.
In any case, I suspect I was rarely doing the spinning moves right – the loud music drowned out the instructors’ voices and the dark lighting made it very difficult to see them. I spent most of each session mimicking the confident participants around me. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing.
But alas, there were moments when the instructors would turn out the lights altogether, which I think were meant to put people in-the-zone, although these were typically the moments I would fumble and fall out of it.
Never mind my fish-out-of-water experience. Spinning has surged in popularity in recent years, with many studios opening up and existing chains adding new branches to their belt amidst the pandemic.
I know a couple who even converted a room in their flat into a personal spin studio, complete with strobe lights that illuminate at different rhythms. The spinning enthusiasts among my friends love that it is fast, fun, and offers a good workout. One also said the dimly-lit studio makes her feel less self-conscious.
And spinning does offer certain benefits over other high-impact exercises. For one, it’s easier on the joints and probably uses more parts of the body than running does.
Well, what can I say, but – to each its own?
So I’ll stick with finding my groove outdoors.
There’s something restorative about the natural, and often changing, concoction of sights, sounds, and scents. I certainly prefer these over an intense ride to nowhere with cardio blast playlists.
Doctors have even started to prescribe time outside to help with stress and anxiety, which says a lot about what forest hour can do.
And it doesn’t always have to be a grand adventure or the picturesque wilderness, although those certainly are wonderful. Even in a concrete jungle like Singapore, there are plenty of adventures to be had.
The pandemic definitely taught me to be creative about hanging out in this garden city. Apart from switching up running routes, I have also been cycling and kayaking, as well putting myself up for a challenge every now and then.
In December 2020, I walked all 36 km of the coast-to-coast trail with some new friends, which brought us through very different neighbourhoods in the country. Spending 12 hours together was also a surefire way to get to know one another.
On Christmas morning last year, I tried to run 50 km with 2 buddies. We started at 4 am but never quite got there… It was still good fun, we might try it again this year.
Spending so much time outside has taught me to embrace and find beauty in ordinary little things, like observing a tree on my usual route bloom at certain times of the year, or tracking a certain building from groundbreaking to topping out.
With outdoor adventures, one never really knows what’s around the corner. In some way, this has taught me to accept the limits of my control and roll with life’s unpredictability. I am thinking about the time my headlamp blacked out on an evening trail run in MacRitchie (admittedly, this could have been avoided with better planning and batteries), and when I witnessed a fatality while hiking the Pinnacles in Sarawak.
It isn’t always pretty, but that’s just the way it is with life.
A loop in the east This route meanders through the coast, various neighbourhoods, and light industrial areas in eastern Singapore; it always reminds me to appreciate what appears to be mundane. It’s also a testament to the wonders of our park connectors.
Distance: About 19 km
Route markers: (A) Start and end at Kembangan MRT station (B) East Coast Park (C) Take underpass to Bedok Park Connector (D) Take right, pass Bedok Camp (E) Turn right onto Upper Changi Road East (F) Bedok Reservoir Park (G) Exit park at HomeTeamNS clubhouse, continue along Bedok North Rd (H) Bedok North MRT station, then park connector parallel to PIE
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