The Sufferfest: Half Is Easy

     The Ministry of Sufferlandria has determined that we haven’t been suffering enough and has “treated” us to a new Sufferfest workout! It’s called Half is Easy and is touted as a more “beginner” workout since, as the name implies, half of the workout is recovery or “easy”.  It seems that Grunter von Agony is actually pretty thin-skinned and is insulted by the notion that his workouts may too difficult for the average mortal. Half is Easy is his way of reaching out to Couchlandrians. 

Length: 40 minutes

Format: The bulk of Half is Easy is “Ugly 15’s”.  These are twenty sprints of 15 seconds each. But after each sprint you get a 15 second recovery interval. You do two sets of Ugly 15’s (so 40 sprints/40 recovery intervals in total), with a 4 minute recovery in between.

Music: electronica

Footage: the footage during the warmup is really fun: cycleball. I’d never even heard of cycleball before but now I seriously want join a league. Check out this clip: 

The footage during the sprints for the first Ugly 15’s set is BMX and Cyclocross and the footage during the recoveries is of various Couchladrians lazing around: on the beach, petting a kitty and (where else?) sitting on the couch. OK but not great. I greatly preferred the footage during the second set of Ugly 15's. The sprint footage is from a U23 road race and the recovery footage was gorgeous overhead shots of mountains and Florence, similar to the footage in Violator.

Difficulty: just because it’s an easier Sufferfest workout doesn’t mean it’s easy.  But the recovery intervals and the shorter time make it easier than most other Sufferfests. My legs were fatigued and a bit weak from a lower body workout the day before (poor planning on my part) but in terms of a cardio challenge and sweat factor, Half Is Easy definitely doesn’t compare to most of the other Sufferfest workouts. I keep debating whether it's a 6.5 or a 7 on the difficulty scale. I'm going to give it a 7/10 for difficulty. 

Other Random Thoughts: I liked Half Is Easy but I didn’t love it. I just found that the humour that usually makes me enjoy the Sufferfest workouts so much was really lacking and I missed having a storyline. I also wasn’t crazy about the footage during the first half. The on-screen graphics (timer, RPMs, interval counter, etc) have been revamped; this threw me for a bit of a loop and it took me a while to adjust as it didn’t feel like a true Sufferfest workout for the first few minutes. But I ended up liking the new graphics a lot. I also really enjoyed the cooldown. The Sufferfest often uses their cooldowns to call attention to worthy causes and the cooldown for Half is Easy is no exception. During the cooldown you learn about a fantastic organization called World Bicycle Relief. Their website can be found here.

People new to spinning might be tempted to start with Half Is Easy but I don’t think it’s the one I’d recommend for a newbie to get the “true” Sufferfest experience. I’d recommend Extra Shot for someone trying a Sufferfest for the first time. It just seems more representative of the true Sufferefest experience to me. (But for someone not new to spinning but new to the Sufferfest, It Seemed Like a Good Idea is definitely the one I’d recommend.)

So even though I didn’t love Half Is Easy, I’m really happy to have a shorter and easier Sufferfest in my collection. 7.5/10 overall.