Damn gym treadmills!

The BBQ Pit
1

I like to run, not as a dedicated athete or Official Member of a Program might run but just sort of dashing about in my silly gym shorts, accelerating where the sidewalks are free, dashing all-out now and then, slowing to a walk to catch my breath afterwards, more or less simply because it feels good and I can.

I’m in the gym 'cuz it’s stuck at 34° Fahrenheit and oscillating between mushy clumpy snowflakes and icyhard rain pellets and scampering around on sidewalks would be No Fun At All, and my legs aren’t happy with the inactivity.

So I’m striding along for a little bit at 4 miles/hour and I’m ready to run, and if I were on the sidewalks I’d get from here to somewhere between 8 and 9 MPH est. pretty quickly, and in fact the acceleration is part of the fun. In here, I reach out with the right hand and push and hold the “speed” button and hold it and hold it and hold it as it changes from 4.0…to 4.1…to 4.2…to 4.3

…around the upper end of the range between 6 and 7 MPH, long fast awkward strides no longer cut it and I break into an awkward stumbly run, and from then on am pumping off-balance with my left while the right hand remains jammed down on the stupid unresponsive sludgy slow button… 6.8…6.9…7.0…

After finally getting the damn thing cranked up to running speed and running for awhile, I pull it back down to walking speed (it doesn’t slow down as quickly as I want it to but it does so faster than it speeds up at least) and after a few repeats I feel like running hard… but by the time I’ve got it cranked up to wide open, I’ve put in nearly a quarter mile at speeds ranging from 9 to 12 MPH with one hand on the fucking throttle-button the whole way, and rather than any sense of the exhiliration of speed and acceleration I just feel frustrated and opposed and already annoyingly tired from the effort of wrestling with the treadmill before I’ve got the damn treadmill up to speed.

Why the fuck can’t I dial in a speed and hit “Enter” and go back to running and have it come up to the pace I entered? Better yet, why isn’t there a control for rate of acceleration where I could have it change speeds more quickly?
I will tell you what I actually do, if you promise not to tell the KnowItAll staff members, who’d get Greatly Concerned about me with lurid visions of falls and lawsuits and torn muscles and stuff: I hoist myself in the air and then straddle the belt, feet on the nonmoving edges, and then run the speed up while I’m standing there, and then with a firm grip on the front bar-thingie I leap on and come up to pace in about 4-5 strides. It takes another 4-5 strides to change from lots and lots of short choppy strides to considerably fewer long open ones. After the very first couple steps I’m close enough to the speed of the belt to be in a stable position even without the arms holding the bar, and I can let go and pump. All in all, it’s a tiny bit too much acceleration, especially at first, but it’s a hell of a lot closer to what feels right than the “go read a newspaper and I’ll call you when it gets above 9 MPH” acceleration the treadmill natively provides.

2

Tons of people do that, most of we “knowitall” gym staff watch to make sure no damage ensues, and then leave the member to his obviously well capable devices.

I do the same thing, but for different reasons. I have a bad leg, and occasionally have to stop running or walking fast to “unclick” it. I have to do the handrail graspy/hop on the side rails thingie to do that.

Don’t worry, as long as you’re careful, I doubt any but the MOST AR gym personnel will say anything.

3

Well, you’re better than me. I just fall off the damn things unless I hold onto the sides.

4

On a related note, why are there no decent fans on them? I mean, I’m generating close to 1kw of heat while running at five miles per minute; why can’t there be a fan to maintain 12 MPH of airflow over my whole body? I went on one and almost got incinerated by my own body heat.

5

PS: Wet/bad weather running is a lot of fun, much more so than going after it in the dry. I used to be at least 30 seconds per mile faster in the rain because I wouldn’t get overheated or dehydrated.

6

I’ll go out in the cold, up (or down, I should say) to the point that my chest hurts and I can’t inhale good without excessive effort and concentration.

I have a “rain thing”. I don’t do rain. In the depth of midwinter I count the number of days when folks don’t show up for work because “it snowed”, and I’ll cheerfully and happily don my Raichles and crump-eek crump-eek crump-eek my way to work through 4-foot snow-ramparts and arrive at a half-empty workplace in the best of moods, but I’ll count those against days when the puddles the cabbies hit to douse you head-to-toe with filthy clammy water and your glasses fog and steam up and the wind inverts your umbrella and your shoe goes down into a culvert and soaks up icy cold water that soaks through to your socks, and if the tally is at all close to even I’m calling in sick on the rain days. I hate rain. The only thing worse than rain is freezing rain, where it lands at 29° F and immediately turns to ice on impact and your cheeks burn and your clothes ice up and everything you try to walk on is slicker than transmission fluid on an oil spill. God I hate the rain.

7

Holy Mary, Mother of God! It’s The Flash!

8

How funny, I love rain.

9

You must be on some cheepo/old treadmills there. All the ones I’ve seen and used have this. :confused:

10

Well, I’ve heard that as an explanation by cornerbacks about how I beat them deep…

11

That IMHO thread on pitting people made me think maybe I ought to wander into the Pit and see what’s in here. A thread near and dear to my heart! Running!

Treadmills only let you set the speed that way when you start them. Once you’re running, you’ve got to bump them to some speed using a plus sign or something, and then you wait for them to catch up.

I use treadmills for two things: recovering from an injury that might flare up and leave me trapped miles from aid. And speed work in the cold. I might like to run in the snow, but trying to do quarters on the snow is a good way to need to use a treadmill for reason 1.

I’ve never had anyone hassle me about the vault entry. AHunter3, IIRC, you are a good enough athlete that they may just have fun watching how fast you can go on one. But beware, they can get inaccurate above 7 minute mile pace.

12

It sounds like your gym just has shitty treadmills. Though I’ve never met a treadmill yet where I could control the rate of acceleration.

What really drives me batshit at gyms are the people who hold onto the treadmill for dear life, not the ones who do a “vault entry.” If you’re going so fast you either have to hold on or fly off, you’re going too fucking fast and need to slow the belt down. As for jumping on after the belt has sped up, I’m impressed. I can’t do that without flying backward. I’m just not that graceful.

13

The ones at my gym allow you to enter in a number even once you’ve been moving for a while. They will still increae the speed gradually, but you won’t have to hold the add button down.