Wednesday, January 6, 2010

winter workouts

This was the scene last night at the Y:


Darn, I can't embed it!

I was the one in the pink pants. Too bad it wasn't half as exciting as this in real life. After the friend-who-will-remain-nameless-to-protect-her-innocence and I got suited up and all the way to the edge of the moderately crowded pool, then walked straight back into the locker room, dry as the desert, I ventured upstairs to the weight room to greet the resolutioners. Surprisingly I got a treadmill right away. I'm still not sure where all these drivers of the cars in the packed parking lot were, because it didn't seem particularly crowded in there. I guess it was Tuesday, after all, and after 4 days of exercising this year, it's time for a break.

But anyway. I have to arm myself with a plan whenever I step upon that massive piece of exercise equipment. This plan must involve changing the speed or incline at least every 3 minutes or boredom will quickly ensue and the workout will come crashing to a halt (hopefully not literally, although I recently witnessed a work incident where a person took an odd step and not only ended up flat out on the moving belt, but failed to let go of the bar, like a waterskiier who has fallen and is still hanging onto the rope, and sustained multiple belt burns. He was for the most part fine, and we onlookers still have that hilarious image to bring tears of laughter to our eyes. It was way better than my sideways treadmill fall, even though I was wearing a skirt).

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, boring treadmills. It was another 40 minute attempt to stave off boredom for as long as possible. The only mild excitement came when I discovered that this newfangled treadmill has an actual fan inside of it! It was a pathetically light stream of air, and I decided that it should at least correlate with running speed, just as real wind outdoors would. The end result was that I worked up a sweat for the first time in several weeks (during a run, that is-- I woke up last night sweating when I had a nightmare about my wedding dress being a pastel floral print).

I think the one case that I would actually really love a treadmill is in my office. If you've never heard of James Levine, MD, you might not have heard of his research in Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. What really interests me is his office setup, which would be my dream! I wonder how fast I could run and still be able to type? Experiments may follow. Stay tuned.

4 comments:

  1. Your comment about the resolutioners cracked me up...I hate the treadmill too, but I'm kinda wishing I had one with all this crazy weather!

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  2. no treadmill!!! come run with me!!!! (for a warm up, at least!)

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  3. Hey, my friend choreographed that video -- it's her brother Damien's band -- he really is the one in the pink pants!!

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  4. How cool M! It was pretty awesome!!

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