the treadmill

The machine is a PRECOR C942, and I looked and memorized this solely so I would know what to write here, for ads to be posted on the blog. In the meantime I signed up for Adsense, and maybe someone buys it and I can partially cover the cost for the Marathon for Dummies book.

Just kidding. No one will hurry to buy it, here or elsewhere, because it stands squat and heavy, and is not sleek and streamlined and complex as some of the newer models. There is another machine in the exercise room (the brand is Lifestyle), it looks much more svelte and fit, but it requires a safety key to function, and the safety key is never there, and the person who is supposed to hand one the safety key is never in the clubhouse either.

I don’t mind, I like the PRECOR, I am comfortable on it. The other one is almost too sophisticated for me, I do not understand all the glyphs and graphs, all the buttons and lights, I do not need a machine that is so much smarter than me. The PRECOR already stumps me.

At least in the beginning (now I don’t pay attention to this anymore) it seemed to know how much I intended to run that day, or even scarier, how attuned I was to the exertion each time. Whenever I was increasing my daily task with one mile it showed quick calorie consumption from the start, as if acknowledging that day would warrant extra effort. And whenever I miled the same distance as on the day before, the calories were sluggish in accruing. The treadmill said: you did this before, so you can do it again, it’s not a big deal, not too many spent calories for you today. Smart device, really.