I bought a new treadmill the other day. Now, for most families I realize this wouldn’t exactly be an event on par with baptisms or your child graduating college, but in my household, largely due to my bizarre way of thinking, this was a big deal. I have long been an advocate of family focused exercise and fitness, so any new arrival that promotes that philosophy I treat as a banner day and mark it with the appropriate celebration. My family often thinks otherwise. In most situations, while I am enraptured in the process of unwrapping the new toy, my daughters are laying bets on when I will begin cursing the exercise god for putting too many screws and too few instructions in the assembly papers. For them this is a form of entertainment (on the lines of watching car wrecks in NASCAR) because they get to witness, first hand, daddy’s complete and total meltdown when faced with the task of assemblage. A new exercise toy arrives and, even before I am home from work, they have made the popcorn and set up chairs at a safe distance from the assembly area, much like they would watch a space shuttle launch. With the added technology of video recorders, they have been able to immortalize my rants and decompensation for their friends and future grandchildren. Even now a new kid shows up at our house, and immediately they look upon me with this expression of recognition, “Wow, he is really the one we saw throwing the wrench and beating the wall with his head?” I am known throughout my kid’s school as Doctor Dementia. It is things like this that make me wonder why we didn’t just have puppies. Not to be outdone by our offspring, my wife Susan has a subtle yet compassionate way of calming me while I am putting together the treadmill, weight set, or fanny blaster de jour. When a package is delivered that she knows is one of my obsessive objects, she calmly buys an extra bottle of Chardonnay and makes plans to visit her parents in Macon. I think the biggest thrill for them, other than seeing their surgeon daddy totally flabbergasted at following directions, is knowing that they will have a new torture device to add to the family collection. Needless to say, they do not share my excitement in spending hours running, gliding, lifting, or spinning, and regularly question my sanity. I must say in their defense; however, that each one of them, in their own right, loves exercise. They understand that staying active is the fountain of youth and that being fit is a family affair. But as my oldest would say, “Dad, you really have to get a grip and understand that normal people don’t have fun watching movies on a treadmill.” She may have a point. But even in the midst of their undying support and bursts of laughter, I always persist in getting the darn thing put together. With the last screw in and the final bolt placed (even though there are still 5 screws in the bag for who knows what reason) I have the distinct honor, mainly because everyone else has gone to bed hours ago, of being the first on the machine. I climb on with chills of excitement and push the “start” button and am quickly transported into the stratosphere of exercise bliss (some call it exhaustion). However, after about 2 miles I find myself huffing and gasping for air like an asthmatic buffalo. I quickly rationalize this as just being tired from putting the thing together, and promise myself to begin afresh in the morning. The next day, thankfully a weekend day off call, I am out in the man cave (the nickname my sweet wife gave my exercise dungeon) and back to conquer the miles that lay before me. Again, after about two miles at a very slow pace, I find myself floundering like a fish out of water. Forced to stop or pass out, I sat to get my breath and contemplated what was happening. I was convinced that I had contacted tuberculosis over the past day and was swiftly headed towards an iron lung…or is that polio? Anyway, I knew I had some grave respiratory ailment that would end my running and relinquish me to a slow, feeble death. At this point my youngest daughter came into the room to essentially make fun of me, and she asked, “Dad, why are you running with the machine pointed up?” At first I didn’t understand her question because it lacked biting satire, but then I looked at the treadmill and noticed that indeed the front of the machine was elevated thus creating a 5% incline on which I had been running. Now for you young studs, that would be no big deal, but for the “mature” runner, this is about as big a deal as being regular without Metamucil. I was running uphill! I didn’t have TB. I was just stupid, and that is somewhat less terminal than most dreaded diseases. This once again proved that fitness is a family affair as my 12 year old saved me from certain death by her simple observation. Maybe tomorrow I’ll run outside.
