Saturday, January 21, 2012

Revelations of a Hotel Treadmill

As I had previously blogged, I plan on keeping my routine as normal as possible for race day.  That includes doubling.  So I awoke and checked the weather online.  It said -3 with some wind and I said no.  So I adventured a little and found the Hampton Inn's Exercise Room.

When I arrived in the exercise room it was hot.  I went to the window mounted heating/cooling system and found that the last person to use the room had turned the heater to "Max Heat" settings.  They must have really wanted to lose some weight.  Anyway, after turning the system off entirely, I examined the equipment.  All the machines looked fairly new and in good working order.  Except the treadmill.  I mean, it worked, but barely.  It worked enough that I was able to get 5 miles in no problem.  The main problem was that strange noises came from within the treadmill as it rotated.  If I had to guess what was creating the noise it would have been a garden gnome and a small kitten stuck inside of the treadmill, bouncing around, and occasionally being stepped on by me.

It took me a good 7:47 mile to get over said sounds.  After that, my attention turned to the TV.  I was fascinated by the fact that the temperature was a consistent -0 F.  Is -0 colder than 0?  It is an intimidating figure that negative symbol.  I quickly became glad that I chose the strange, creaky treadmill over the frigid upper Mid-West temperatures.  It was so cold, in fact, that Mike Krsnak came back crying from his outdoors excursion.  Even though he only ran around the hotel.  I guess some people just aren't man enough to handle the Minnesota winter.

Another thing that interested me was the coverage of the T-Wolves game.  The first 3 shots they showed were of my least favorite player, Darko, making shot after shot.  The last score I see is 13-23 then it skips all the way to the end of the game and in quick sequence Rubio and Kevin Love hit 3-pointers to win the game.  It was just interesting how they skipped most of the game.

As I arrived at 5.000 miles on the treadmill (yes, it recorded to the thousandths) I proceeded to push the stop button.  Unlike modern treadmills this one meant business.  Usually they try to put you through a cool-down routine before it lets you step off.  This treadmill stopped instantly and I ran into the control panel, hard.  I was sure I had broken the machine but alas, it was fine!

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