Milling the Tread

For reasons so uninteresting I can’t even write about them without losing my train of thought, I have been running a lot on the treadmill.

I used to loathe the treadmill with a hatred so intense it was only eclipsed by the hissing vitriol my cats have for each other over a freshly-poured bowl of kitty crunchies.  My biggest problem with the treadmill is that I can’t overcome feeling like a witless hamster spinning his wheel.  I suspect that when anthropologists a hundred years from now look back on our society, they’ll marvel at the fact that gay marriage was controversial, that women willingly implanted baggies full of silicone in their chests, and that people paid a lot of money for the pleasure of running in place.  And beyond the fact that it is literally exercising in futility, running on a treadmill is just…so…boring.

Unlike the malevolent feline situation, I have managed to make peace with the treadmill.  The biggest adjustment that I’ve made is that instead of throwing my towel over the timer and pretending it doesn’t exist, I use the clock to my advantage.  I set my pace knowing how far I want to go, and while I run I calculate the distance I’ve covered and how much I have left based on the minutes and seconds that melt away.  I also find this keeps me running at a pretty decent clip.  When running outdoors, my speed has to be self-generated.  On the treadmill, once I choose a pace the machine generates the motivation for me.  The belt waits for no one.  Knowing the options are either keep up or fall flat on my face, I almost always choose the former.

Make no mistake, my druthers will always be a good, old fashioned outdoor run.  But for me, running on a treadmill has become a necessary evil.  It’s convenient; I can exercise at lunch and return to work freshly showered; the rain doesn’t affect my workout; and even if it’s nice outside, my skin is saved from time that would otherwise be spent soaking up UV rays.  In other words, on the treadmill I can expose my tan lines all I want without making any new ones.  Although I don’t really expose too much, mostly out of courtesy to the other gym members.  No one wants to see my cellulite in motion.