(the pic is actual treadmill involved in this story)
I got a treadmill technology beat down today, and it was not pretty. Now, I consider myself an OK-smart person, one who is embracing of new technology and very math/science/numbers oriented. My highest grade in college was in my Calc III class and I was even a software engineer for a few years. So usually I can figure out how to make electronic things work.
But not today.
At lunch today I ventured to the YMCA for an easy 30 minute run on the treadmill. Ugh. But I was ready, iPod in hand and my new running visor to keep my focus straight (wearing a hat while running inside helps me be less distracted by pretty things in my side vision). As I walk towards the row of treadmills I notice a lack of obnoxious TV screens attached to the machines..yes. I hate staring at a blank TV one foot from my face. I find my treadmill but as I approach, I found out it was too good to be true...these treadmills have TV embedded in the front of them. And I notice they have gross sticky finger prints all over the screens (as in, sticky with Swine Flu germs, people sweat, and probably some snot too).
So I figure out how to turn on the treadmill. I play with the TV and nothing happens. It's a touch screen. I stand there poke...poke...poke...nothing. The menu will not engage. So frustrating. I had to ask the maintenance person, he comes right over, presses the 'button' and the menu comes up. Oh, it's Press not Poke. Ick, that means more time my fingertip has to spend on the germy screen.
So I press. And the TV gets stuck on "A Baby Story" on TLC. Really? The LAST thing I want to watch while I'm hammering hard on a treadmill. So I press some more. It gets stuck on a Soap Opera. I don't even know why I tried....eventually I figured out how to turn off the TV. Thank goodness. At this point it's still at 3 mph walking pace. Time to figure out how to run. I press the big speed-me-up handle and it jumps to 7.5 mph. Ha! Not for 30 minutes. I press again, 5.5. Not going to work. So I decided to try to use the touch screen again to do it 0.1 by 0.1 until I finally reach my desired 6.4 mph speed.
Ugh. In all this playing around, I manage to turn on the "time and miles" section. I spent 7:25 walking and trying to figure out how to use that silly silly treadmill. All I want to do it get on, get my speed, and stare at the blank yellow wall in front of my face. I don't want to watch TV...even if I wanted to I would be motion sick. Do people really run on those things and watch TV at the same time? Without falling off? I'd like to see that.
At one point I stood on the rails to switch my music. I knew to finish the last 5 minutes I would need a great motivating song. In the time it took me to find my other song, I see a message on the screen that says "no person detected" and SHUT OFF! It just plain 'ol turned off and stopped. Seething with frustration, by this time I'm an expert at controlling the speed so I just re-start the workout and go for those last 5 minutes. After 5 minutes was done, I pressed that big red "emergency shut-off" button. At least that's one thing that doesn't ever change.
It took me 40 minutes to run 30 minutes and I left that Y feeling a little stupider than when I arrived. Tomorrow I'm running outside, no questions asked.
8 comments:
Technology. Who needs it? The world is full of stuff that reasonably intelligent people can't figure out because the designers don't know how regular people think. Video recorders are the classic example, but cell phones, microwaves, digital cameras, and computers all have their interface problems. And now, apparently, treadmills. Things are just too complicated for their own good. Or our good.
I'm particularly annoyed by putting a TV everywhere it will fit. Every room of the house. Mini vans. Waiting rooms of all description. And now, apparently, treadmills. Yuck. It might have been me that was last on it, doing my best to drip sweat and other noxious bodily fluids on it, in an effort to render it inoperable. Or at least unwatchable.
I do not think it a coincidence that the world has gone dramatically downhill since TV became popular.
OMG. No doubt I would have gotten pissed off and jumped on another machine. And all of those gross finger prints? Ugh. Congrats for figuring it out.
It's 5:30 here and freaking 77 already. I'm moving into your spare room. Hope you don't mind :)
I was getting frustrated just reading about your treadmill trials....AAARRRGGHHH!!!!
I agree with Keith -- technology for the sake of technology is not always a good thing. And a TV ON the treadmill? Good Lord, how in the heck would you even watch it? Maybe the next treadmill we'll see will have a sofa at the end of the ramp and a bag of chips and a remote control....LOL!!
So funny about those sweaty fingerprints! LOL!! I just wrote Keith yesterday about this old man at the pool who floats on a pool noodle for 30 minutes and coughs and coughs and coughs. You know those guttural old-man phlegmy coughs? UGH. I swear I could see droplets of H1N1 flying across the pool to me....LOL!!
OMG,all you people have me totally creeped out about all the gunk out there right now. Dirty prints, snotty noses, nasty people peeing in the pool....gahhhhhh.
Yeah, if you can take it, go outside. THAT treadmill sounds like WAY too much work.
I use to go to a gym where they had TV's by the cardio machines and they had the sound TURNED OFF but they had the text on so you would find yourself running, your eyes would be drawn to the words on the tv and it is only natural to read if you see words. TALK ABOUT PUKEVILLE.That was so hard on my stomach!!
I agree, enough with all the techy stuff - sometimes we need to garb up, hit the door and run outside in the fresh, germer-free air and leave all the tech behine - somedays - even watches and garmins!!
The tv is trying to make it easy to run. Guess what? Running ain't easy! You are not going to get fit the easy way...get rid of the tv on the treadmill!! Crazy.
Hilarious post MNS. I love to run watching the TV! But I hate when I have to figure out new treadmills in public.
PS- loved the comment about wearing a hat/visor indoors. I can picture that in my head.
Watching TV attracts you attention when you are running on treadmill. It could be dangerous. But when you are running on treadmill, it is tedious that keep staring at yellow wall, so the some creative features have been put into treadmills to overcome the disadvantage. Technology is good, how is to use technology to make people happy, this is the hardest part.
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