My New Treadmill - Part II

Newsflash!!! New treadmill finally assembled! Read all about it here!

The twenty four hour countdown started about 11 A.M. on the first of September. That meant having lunch, watching a video, taking a nap, then going to work at 7 P.M. Work consisted of being sent to another psych unit in the main building of the hospital where they usually house geriatric patients. I was assigned to watch a blind, homeless man who attempted to commit suicide because of his medical problems. He was not a problem at all, very cooperative and nice. I sat by his bedside all night until morning, and after feeding him breakfast, I went home to wait for the service technician with bated breathe. His arrival window was between 10 and 11 A.M. After drifting into a light sleep at 8:15, I awoke at 9:45 and couldn’t go back to sleep in eager anticipation. I checked downstairs twice until he finally arrived at 10:45.

After unloading the treadmill parts from the box, he sorted out the various screws and washers to one side, the base to another, the treadbelt and console at other places. I thought this was supposed to be a two person operation, but this guy was amazing. He read the instructions briefly and was soon on his way putting things together. With all his tools, he made it look effortless. The amount of time I would have taken reading the instructions was about the time it took him to almost finish the job. The guy was done in less than an hour. I asked him how many assemblies he does in a week and he said about six, but he does more repairs than assemblies. Then he showed me the controls from the console and then he was done. I offered him a bottle of Gatorade to go and he was on his way to his next assignment. I was left to take the boxes, plastic covers, and other debris to the trash dumpster.

After rearranging all my exercise machines in the living room to try to make everything fit, it was time for me to test the treadmill. I put on my running shoes and mounted the machine. I didn’t have any intention on running on it because I’m still trying to recover from my ankle pains and I stuck to that plan by just walking on the treadmill while trying out its controls. After figuring it out, I raised the incline from 3% to 6% while keeping the pace slow at 3 MPH and I walked for 35 minutes while reading the newspaper. I found that if I draped the newspaper over the console, I could hold on to the side rails of the treadmill. That way, I’m in less danger of falling off while I read. That was a pretty good workout in a hot living room for a recovery day. Remember: 30 minutes for the heart, 60 minutes to lose weight, and anything more than that is just long distance. So today was a minimum day for me and it was good enough. The treadmill was working well and so far I’m satisfied with it. Finally! After three weeks of waiting from the day I ordered it to today’s assembly, I have a treadmill again. I’ll be using it like a hamster.

Next topic: how will I use all these exercise machines to design a circuit training workout.