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Saturday, February 2, 2008

Running Makes You Not Fat

I have recently decided to not be fat anymore and to take up running. I ran three days this week and was planning on taking Friday off, and then running again today (Saturday). I was busy for the better part of the morning and early afternoon and thought around 3:00 pm would be a good time to go. Apparently I was wrong.

I have been running at the School because the facilities are nice, free, and are usually not full of meatheads looking for a mate, or plastic girls showing off there recently augmented plastic parts ( this is, by the way, an exaggerated stereotype, although David may fit in the meathead department! :) ). I arrived at the school to find that all the doors to work out rooms are locked up tight. With no one in sight to let me sneak in I settle for plan B: The tiny work out room in our apartment complex. As I walk in, I am meet first with a blast of 85 degree air that smells like a mix of an old bowling ally, my left foot, and the bathroom after my Dad has had a large meal. There were two other guys working out that I assume were the main contributers of this robust aroma.

Reminding myself that not being fat is the ultimate goal, I put my shoes on and settled unto a treadmill to start my warm up. As I walked, getting lose to prepare for my long journey to no where, I looked in the mirror that covers the entire wall in front of me and see that my head is coming a little to close to the celling. If you happened to read my last post you will learn that I am not tall at all, or as my Dad says, I'm 'above average'. I decide to switch to the next treadmill over to warm up and run. After a brisk 5 minute, 3 mph warm up walk I bump the speed up to a whooping 6.5 mph. Feeling confident with the speed I take about 3 strides when the machine shuts off. Apparently this treadmill doesn't like to have people run on it. I try again hoping that it was just being irascible. Turns out that it is really just a big piece of rubbish that has does not work properly worked. (did I just say rubbish?)

I promptly switch back to the original treadmill, get it up to speed, and find that it makes a horrible creaking....or breaking...or just one of those bad sounds that you know isn't right. But I push on knowing that running will make me not fat. After the first couple minutes my mind finally is puts at ease that I will not hit my head on the celling. Then something exciting happens. I know you are wonder what possibly could be exciting on a treadmill in and room that is 85 degrees and smells like an old bowling ally, my left foot, and the bathroom after my Dad has had a large meal. Well I will tell you! The tread decided to stop spinning randomly until it felt the pressure of my foot hitting it. I don't know if any of you have actually experienced it but I have found it similar (in a very loose way) to slipping on ice when you try to run on it catching patches of snow that kinda act like traction. It actually doesn't give justice to what it is really like but that is the only thing that comes to mind.

I am known to be clumsy. Especially when I am trying to impress a girl, or need to do something important. I have never had a real problem being clumsy before on a treadmill before, so I was caught completely off guard when I tripped. Luckily I caught my self on the nifty safety bars. (This is another time when my lower center of gravity has come into handy.) I at least wanted to run a mile and was little over half way done when the first trip occurred. I stuck it out and actually ran a pretty good mile time of about 12:00 minutes. Which is fairly good considering I haven't ran that much in the past year.

I contemplated running for another 20 minutes or so outside but quickly put that thought out of my mind because the second I stepped out side I saw steam rise from my face and shirt. On my way home my hair started to freeze so I am sure I made the right decision. Anywho that was my late afternoon. Pretty lame, but you are reading this, so I guess that its not that bad!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Brad, I'm proud of you for running! Even when the atmosphere isn't that good! Wish i could have seen you when the treadmill was being goofy! Keep us posted on how the running goes?
Ever hear why the school was closed?
I love the way your write! Makes me laugh!

Anonymous said...

Wow, did I ever have deja vu reading your post. My pulse rate increased by about 3 bpm. It reminded me of watching you fishing with the Wii at Christmas time. I know a guy that fell off the treadmill backwards in the basement one time. The first thing I did was look to see if anyone saw me.

Amy said...

Keep up the running yo! Oh, and keep your left foot away from me :)

Dave said...

Brad, I'm offended. Meathead? C'mon. I'm already married so I don't have to look for a mate. I'm also offended because you didn't mention any of my attractive plastic parts.

HR said...

So what does your dad smell like in the bathroom?

Ashley said...

Brad, you are hilarious!!! :) I personally hate running too and even though I am in fairly good shape I still suck at it. Give me a bike and some sweet padded spandex shorts any day!! :)haha