On I went, out of the wood, passing the man leading without knowing I was going to do so. Flip-flap, flip-flap, jog-trot, jog-trot, curnchslap-crunchslap, across the middle of a broad field again, rhythmically running in my greyhound effortless fashion, knowing I had won the race though it wasn't half over, won it if I wanted it, could go on for ten or fifteen or twenty miles if I had to and drop dead at the finish of it, which would be the same, in the end, as living an honest life like the governor wanted me to. -Alan Sillitoe, "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Go ahead and laugh at me, I can take it

So, what did I decide to do about the gym, you're wondering?

Over the weekend (which is Friday/Saturday here because I'm in a Muslim country), I went to try out the "fitness center" at the student dorms.  I'm going to take away the quotation marks from now on, because it's certainly adequate.  It's bigger than it originally looked - maybe only slightly smaller than my New York City living room, but bigger than my New York City office - and is surprisingly well equipped.  No ellipticals, which I'm okay with, but a couple of treadmills and the intimidating looking weight machines.  Best of all, when I went there Friday afternoon, it was completely empty.

I got on the treadmill, intending to run for somewhere around an hour.  I did my usual treadmill ritual, which is to turn the treadmill on at a nice walking pace (usually around 3.2mph for me) while setting up my ipod, my water bottle, my towel, etc.  The treadmill had a nice ledge where I could set my ipad, so I loaded up Hamlet 2 and got ready to run.  A few minutes later, once I was all set, I turned the treadmill up to a running pace of about 6mph and started to jog.

But at 6mph, I wasn't jogging.  The freaking treadmill wasn't calibrated right.  I cursed out the treadmill for a minute and tried cranking it up more.


Most of you have probably already seen where this is going by now.

Text to my sister.

Oh, yeah, right, the US is one of the only countries that still clings to our stupid system of imperial units.  I'm not proud of my own stupidity.
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3 comments:

  1. Silly Girl RunningTue Jan 11, 08:32:00 AM EST

    Hahaha! You've got to learn how to convert km/hour to miles/hour and vice versa. ;) Welcome to my world! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. MikeTue Jan 11, 08:35:00 AM EST

    My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I like it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DawnTue Jan 11, 12:48:00 PM EST

    If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure I would have made the exact same mistake.

    ReplyDelete

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