The Guy On The Elliptical

Did you ever have one of those days in which you did not want to go to the gym?

Well, that’s how I felt this morning.  But I pushed myself.  I overcame the inertia.  I got myself in gear and went even though the innate desire was not present.

However, when I arrived, I still did not feel like I had any energy.  So, when I stepped up onto the treadmill it felt as if I was plodding along with a 30 pound sand bag around my neck.  I did not set a high incline on the machine nor did I set a very fast walking pace.  I’m admitting to you that I just didn’t have it.  (Okay sure, the breakfast burrito from McDonalds, on the way over, probably didn’t help.  I’ll grant you that.  But, still…)

But then I noticed a young man on one of the elliptical machines who was going at a faster pace than I’ve ever seen before.  I’m not kidding when I tell you it looked like a video that had been adjusted to a higher speed.

I thought, “Wow!  Look at that guy!  That kind of pace is amazing!!!”

I actually laughed while I watched him.  It was a sight to behold.  It was inspiring.  It was motivating.  Watching this young fellow made me feel better.  I said to myself, “You know what?  Sometimes you’ve got to bring it, even when you don’t feel like it.  You’ve got to rise above the temporary emotions of the moment.”

You say, “Dan, did this encouragement cause you to increase the incline and the pace on the treadmill?”

No, it did not. 

But I’ve noticed a crispness, a vitality, and a certain vigor as I sit here typing this story.

Doing Something Crazy With My Friend Hank

While I was on the treadmill today an incident from long ago came to mind.  I’m not sure why I thought of this, I suspect it may have something to do with the sheer boredom of walking on a treadmill.

Many years ago, I was riding along with one of my high school friends (we’ll call him “Hank,” which may or may not be his name).  While he was driving I noticed that Hank was beginning to slow down dramatically.  We were on a road with a 40 mph speed limit and he was driving about 15 mph—which is extremely slow in a car.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I want to see how the people behind me will react,” Hank said.  (Okay, “Hank” isn’t his real name.)

I had a pretty good idea how they would react.  And very quickly my guess turned out to be true.  Cars were lining up behind us.  Motorists were honking.  They were making gestures.  When they had the opportunity, of course, they went around us.  But those who couldn’t go around were not pleased with my friend’s experiment.

Hank shifted the car into neutral so that we were coasting and it slowed down even more.  In the course of our friendship Hank had done a number of things that surprised me, like the time he jumped out of the emergency back door of our school bus.  You know, the door that says “Emergency exit only?”  The door that sounds a loud alarm when it is opened?  That’s the door from which Hank chose to jump.  And he was incredibly calm when he did it.  He walked to the emergency door and opened it up as if this was the normal course of events.  Then he jumped out as the bus was rolling to a stop.

That surprised me.  And, based on her reaction (and her language) it really seemed to surprise the school bus driver, too.  Hank liked to test the limits of people and experiences and he was about to surprise me once again.

The car, in neutral, continued to slow down, the drivers behind us continued to honk, cuss and make obscene gestures.  Some people are actually quite creative when it comes to obscene gestures.  Have you noticed?  Anyhow…

And then Hank said to me, “Here, take the wheel, I’m going to get out of the car.”

“What?!?” I yelled.

Unfortunately, I think my shocked reactions to his behaviors often just served to encourage Hank because he laughed when I said, “what?!?”

Sure enough, Hank opened the driver’s side door—by this time the car was crawling along very slowly—and he jumped out and began jogging next to the car.  I can only guess what the people behind us were thinking.  Imagine looking at the car ahead of you which is making you angry because it is moving very slowly.  In the car there is a person in the passenger’s seat but no one in the driver’s seat.  The person who was in the driver’s seat is jogging next to the car as it rolls very slowly down a road with a 40 mph speed limit.

Hank was laughing as he jogged.  This was a funny and, knowing Hank, incredibly interesting experiment, in his mind.  I was wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into and I was concerned about someone from the cars behind us getting really mad and doing something crazy.

I suspect if the other motorists could have read my mind they would have said, “Wait a minute?  You’re the one who’s worried about us doing something crazy?!?”  Which, come to think of it, would have been a pretty good point.

After about half a block, or so, of running beside the car Hank jumped back in.  He shifted the car into drive, accelerated to the normal speed, and we continued on our way as if this was all part of a normal day.  You know, like the same kind of normal day in which you jump out of the emergency exit of the school bus.  That kind of normal.

The person on the treadmill next to me looked in my direction because I was laughing as I remembered this story from the past but I suspect it looked to this person like I was walking on a treadmill and randomly laughing for no particular reason.  He may have been thinking, “I hope this guy isn’t going to do something crazy.”

I wanted to tell him, “Don’t worry, I grew up hanging out with Hank, so, I’ve already done something crazy.”

Do Clocks Literally Run Slower When You Are On A Treadmill?

Is it just my imagination or do clocks literally run a little bit slower when you are on a treadmill?  I’m not a physicist but it occurred to me, while I was on a treadmill yesterday, that was part of the point Einstein was getting at with his Theory of Relativity.

Therefore it follows, logically, that if I would have spent the past 25 years on a treadmill I might still be in my thirties!

I regularly share these types of sophisticated physics theories with my friends—free of charge—right here on my blog.

Acing The Stress Test

I took a stress test today—it’s the test that involves walking/jogging on a treadmill—in order to determine if it would be medically sound for me to engage in a “cardiac rehab” program.

As I was being prepped for the test I felt that everything would go well.  But you never know how a test is going to turn out until after the test because that’s the point of taking a test in the first place, right?

Anyhow… immediately following the test my cardiologist came into the room to examine the results.  Speaking to the technician who administered the test, while viewing the results, I actually heard him say the word “wow!”  [No kidding.]

Then he turned to me and said, “You did great.  You don’t even need cardiac rehab!”

He didn’t literally mean that I shouldn’t engage in the rehab program he was just indicating that my performance on the stress test was very good.  Obviously, I will be entering into the rehab program.  But as you can imagine, I felt tremendously encouraged by his comment.  It’s nice to get some good news regarding my physical condition, these days.

By sharing this story, am I suggesting that I’m some type of amazingly strong, wonderfully fit physical specimen?  No.  Don’t be silly.  Of course not.  I’m just saying that my fitness level is fairly similar to Batman’s at the peak of his training.  But other than that, I’m not making any type of unusual claims.