Today I was groovin’ along, doing my thing and actually feeling pretty darn confident! My moleskin was covering my deflated blister, my cushioned socks felt oh so good and I even managed to take a drink from my water bottle, then it happened…
As I have told you my worst fear is being spit off the back of the treadmill (do to lack of coordination on my part) and being sucked in like the escalators you hear about eating people… and this treadmill seems to have one heck of an appetite.
I managed to drink from my water bottle while flying along at 3 miles an hour, wind in my hair (utilized the fan), glowing in the glory of coordination. Then I looked up. I glanced up at the TV on the wall, mistake number one. It is perplexing to me how just moving your eyeballs up and to the left can make you lose your balance, your pace and your panther like stride. I tipped to the right, fumbled a few steps, avoided looking in the huge wall mirror in front of me (it would show me just how close I really was to the back of the hungry machine) and with as much dignity as possible regained composure. After about 10 minutes I thought if I just peeked up at it (I hate it when I “can’t” do something) I would be OK… NOT!
In the end I was victorious over the beast. I am in one piece and he is still hungry.
On my way out of the gym I happened to be chatting with one of the senior Ken’s from 2 days ago. He was telling me how this machine of death almost ate his workout buddy this morning! Seriously! He said he went off the back end but was agile enough (agile, what a word… some day it will be in my vocabulary again) to catch himself when his feet hit the floor. I KNEW IT! IT IS A VENGEFUL, PEOPLE EATING MACHINE!
But wait, there is hope! Senior Ken politely walked me over and showed me a clever feature, an emergency brake. GLORY! There is a little clip you can attach to your shirt so if you are spit out the back it turns the machine off! BRILLIANT! I am now safer (not safe as I am still a completely uncoordinated person) on the machine of death.
My question for today is, if they can put in an emergency brake on a treadmill that works with a simple clip on your shirt why can’t Toyota, with all their resources and engineers, put a brake in a car that will work when the gas pedal goes crazy?
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