A new treadmill!

A New Year usually means resolutions which tend to fizzle out for the majority in a few weeks: the spike in gym memberships, the sales on exercise equipment, blah blah blah.

In my case with a treadmill, fact chance! Maybe I’m a reincarnated hamster although I have seen some YouTube movies of cats enjoying it (ours don’t, we tried).

Back when I was first dating Somara, she had a used one in her apartment. According to Somara, she used it twice and discovered that running in place was rather boring. Therefore the treadmill was converted into a rack for hanging clothes, what I prefer to call a crap-gathering point. I convinced Somara to bring it along for our new joint apartment in 2000. Due to noise issues, I didn’t get to use it as much as I wished and I had to hope for the best at the complex’s exercise room.

With the house I bought 10 years ago, we had the movers transport the treadmill amongst all the other heavy stuff: washer, dryer, couch, shelves, etc. For the next several years, I put some serious mileage on it. Alas, it broke. Something was out of alignment with the motor, gears or guides. Whatever was failing, it caused the belt to be pulled to one side. We tried to have it repaired but the consensus from the techs was, “it would be cheaper to replace the thing than fix it.” Eventually it went to the scrap heap. I had to resort to running outside to get my fix, not exactly appealing in my opinion: bad weather, the neighbors believe Stop signs are a suggestion and Central Texans have never heard of turn signals. Others suggested joining Apple’s employee-only gym, stocked with numerous treadmills. Besides, requiring a mini-physical to pass, I prefer to exercise and shower in private. If we lived closer to work, I would’ve joined long ago.

Somara surprised me with another used treadmill as a Christmas gift in 2005. She scored it at a garage sale and even tested the darn thing…it launched her into a gravel driveway. I was pretty stoked when I received it at her parents’ house. We loaded it in the truck and placed it up where the last one resided. The next day, I fired the gadget up…nothing. Every time I got off the belt, it ran flawlessly but as I soon as I put my feet down to run, the motor groaned while the belt practically stopped. Somara didn’t know this model had a weight limit. At the time, I was easily over 230 pounds (104 kilograms) and I guess the treadmill had a hard ceiling of 220-225. Fear not, this lightweight device found a new home with our friend Tina.

While I was killing time last week, I did some window shopping at Dick’s Sporting Goods (I was also curious about the price of ice skates). They had a model I really thought would do the job. However, we found a comparable one via Academy today yet it has cooler features, namely Wi-Fi ability to hook into Google Maps! Don’t let the MSRP scare you, Academy sells it for $600. Then there will be another $110 to have it delivered and assembled. (We traded in Somara’s pick-up truck last Spring so the Honda Fit would be pushing our luck.)

My long-term goal with it? See if I can run the distance between our house and our time share in Las Vegas, 1352 miles (2176 kilometers) over several years; lower its price tag to 5o cents/mile. For now, I will start out modestly by getting to my best friend Jose’s new pad in the Dallas ‘burbs. Finally, a simple WordPress plug-in that does what I want it to, display my progress on this silly goal.

Next step? We’re clearing out the living room for it to reside. If you want a free couch, let us know via the Comments or contact Somara. Then I want to get the manual to figure out how to buy the Wi-Fi part. It will not be on Craig’s List, this I will guarantee.