The Death Throes of a Treadmill

It was cold last night. Not so cold that I couldn’t wrap up and head out the door for a brisk evening run, but sometimes getting ready to run in the cold is just such a hassle isn’t it? Am I the only one that feels this way? I’ve got to assess exactly how cold it is outside and then determine if I just want to wear one of my UA cold gear shirts or if I’ll need something else over it? Will a vest suffice or do I need a hoodie or a light jacket with sleeves? I just don’t know. Do I want my thin running gloves or my slightly thicker ones? Which hat do I want to wear, the thinner Headsweats hat or the fun one with the tassel on the top that playfully bobs back and forth as I run? These are the important questions that a runner has to ask oneself before heading out in the elements.

It’s just so much easier, albeit more boring, to throw on a pair of shorts and a shirt and hit the treadmill, which is what I decided to do last night. I put a movie on the TV and began to slip into my treadmill coma to help me survive the boredom. But something wasn’t right. The treadmill wasn’t moving and I wasn’t running. I was just standing there watching TV.

“Something’s not right,” I thought. I checked everything again. The dashboard was lit up, the safety key was securely in place, the speed was set just above 6 mph and yet the treadmill was motionless. Blissfully motionless. Standing on the side rails I looked down at the belt and blinked a couple of times before gingerly dipping my toe onto it, half expecting my foot to jerk backwards, but the belt was not moving. Had I finally run my treadmill into submission? Was the cursed piece of machinery finally dead? I hopped off with a little extra bounce in my step, quietly singing to myself “ding dong, the witch is dead.” I was positively giddy. It is flat out wrong how excited I was to go upstairs and inform Candis that the treadmill was dead. I was already thinking about the celebratory bottle of wine I was going to drink and how I’d toast the death of my antagonist. Perhaps I would even mockingly pour some out for my fallen homey.

Then the unthinkable happened; the treadmill beeped at me. It was taunting me, calling out to me for help. I walked back over to it and turned it off and back on again as though it was running on Vista. The dashboard lit up again, just as it had before. I stood on the rails holding my breath and pressed the start button. An eternity passed as I gazed down at the belt but then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the belt began moving monotonously backwards, picking up speed with all the haste of sap oozing down a tree trunk. I let loose a tempest of curse words and I might have even hit or kicked the treadmill a couple of times.

Alas, my treadmill is not dead, and I managed a few lackluster miles on it last night with a few lackluster intervals thrown in for good measure. I suppose that’s good news as it means I don’t have to go through the agony of deciding what cold weather clothes to put on and I can run indoors, but it sure didn’t feel like good news last night when I was on the verge of skipping my run. It’s just one more reason to hate my treadmill, as if I needed any more.