From Point A to Point A

Ever since I discovered that I had an aptitude for it, at the age of 12, long-distance running has been, off-and-on, a mainstay of my life. Now I'm not talking distances of the marathon realm; we're talking a mile or three.

I've engaged in other aerobic activities, such as bicycling and skipping rope -- which I did for about 5 years -- but none of those gives me that excellent feeling that my body is working at full capacity. Your lungs fill with delicious oxygen, and the pulse of your heart is sweet music. Runner's high indeed. Even aerobic recreational activities such as dancing and ice skating, which I absolutely adore, do not give me this. This I get from running alone.

Now running outdoors has several disadvantages: traffic lights, cars, crowds of people. Inclement weather can also pose a problem. All of these problems fell by wayside about 15 years ago when I met one of the great loves of my life: the treadmill. My mother bought herself one -- she still has it and uses it! -- and when I tried it, it was love at first sight.

Well, maybe second sight. Because one of my earliest experiences on the treadmill was off the treadmill. Off, as in getting tossed off. Have you ever fallen off a treadmill? There's nothing quite like it. It's a sudden complete disconnect with the world, and a rude entry into a zone of total chaos. Of course it's completely unpleasant, but it's oddly exhilirating at the same time. And, to add insult to injury, when I got up to resume my run, I learned, the hard way, that getting on a treadmill going at a high speed is not the best idea. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Some people eschew the treadmill. They long for the great outdoors, the wind on their face, under the blue skies, the green, green grass of home. Let them have it, I say! Give me the pristine, rarefied, artificial, completely controlled environment of the treadmill. I am a person who likes to focus, and when you are on that machine, programmed to the desired speed, there are no distractions. Some need a television screen, but not I. Just that 5-foot-long track turning below you and the control panel in front of you, showing your progress -- to the second, and to the tenth of a mile! I'm here to run, and the treadmill laboratory provides me with the means of focusing exclusively on just that.

One day, a few weeks after my discovery of the treadmill, I was out walking, and approached an intersection. I was in a hurry -- perhaps to catch a bus -- and sensed that the green would not be with me for long, so I decided to quickly dash across the street. And, since I was treadmilling every day, I was more than fit for a quick sprint.

But something very strange happened when my brain sent an impulse to my legs, commanding them to start moving. My legs gladly obeyed the order immediately, and started running. But something completely unexpected was taking place. Or rather, was not taking place. For I was running and running, but I looked down and found that I was still on the sidewalk! I was running in place! I decided to try to run faster. The result: I indeed ran faster. And remained just as firmly in the same spot.

"Hey, you guys! You're not getting us anywhere!" barked my brain to my legs.

"Dude, we're doing our best! We're running as fast as we can!" replied my legs defiantly.

I subsequently learned to compensate, but on that day, my legs were unable to get their act together and run in a forward direction, so I had to abandon the effort, and instead walk across that intersection.

What I found so bizarre about this episode was the illogic of it. True, when I ran on the treadmill, I never actually moved forward from point A to point B. It was point A, point A, point A, all the way. But surely, that was simply because the track kept on turning. Wasn't the motion my body was making identical to that of actual running? Take the runner off the treadmill and put him on a regular surface, and he would start to move forward, would he not?!

To this day, I'm not clear as to whether the motion of running on a treadmill is, contrary to my intuition, actually different from that of running on a regular surface, and that is why I ran in place that day, or whether the motions are in fact identical, and it was some bizarre mental paradigm that kept me on the sidewalk that day.

In any event, the amused surprise of seeing myself running in place that day, when I was trying with all my might to run forward, so tickled my funny-bone, that I laughed out loud! So the next time you're out and you see someone running in place and laughing, now you'll know that you have just met a novice treadmiller.