So there I was, plugging away on my cross-trainer thingamabob at the gym. (Actually it was this one.)
On Tuesday, I brought a book in with me. At the time I had three books out from the library, two of which were ILL’ed, and all of them are due back by the first of August, so I need to do some readin’, b’gawd. Anyhoo, I knew that that type of cross-trainer had a book-holder thingie on it. So I could bring my book.
Uh, book-holder is something of a misnomer. It might hold the latest copy of People magazine for the gals or SI for the guys, but the book I had was a moderately wide and thin volume, and it barely fit in the little nubs that hold the sucker open. Bummer.
I finished that book and have started on some narrower, thicker volumes so I knew better than to bother. I just took my iPod full o’ metal (The DiePod! I know, unoriginal, but I think it’s funny) and prepared to watch whatever was on the TV.
I’ve mentioned this before, but:
- Having my own music for cardio is a MUST
- Having a book or TV or something to focus my visual attention as well is a huge help in terms of making the time pass by faster
- Having something interesting in all of the above categories improves it even further. That is, for me, watching the World Series of Poker is a hell of a lot more engrossing than ESPN’s sports-talk show “Around the Horn.” But anything’s better than nothing.
So what happened yesterday?
The TVs were showing women’s golf. I shit you not. No offense ladies, to me watching ANY golf (live or televised) is about as interesting as watching flies fuck, but to have it be ladies’ golf is downright insulting.
And what came next? You know what came next. Twenty minutes into my workout, the DiePod, well, died. I thought I had plenty of charge, but NOOOOOOOOO. And that’s the big drawback to an iPod – my old mp3 player ran on AAA’s. If one ran dead, I kept a spare in my bag. With the iPod, all I could do was finish out the ten minutes on that cycle. And no, I wasn’t about to start another 30-minute cycle like I’d planned. Not watching the LPGA on closed-captioning without any damned music.
Grrr.
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I feel bad laughing at this predicament, but I must.
I can’t do anything on the machines at the gym without music as well as something visual to focus on, and unless I’m biking I’m working too hard for a book. A gym I used to go to had music videos on, and oh my GOD did I hate that, but the only other choice was Fox News. Not so much. They had a dark room where you could watch the movie of the day while you worked out, which definitely appealed to me, but the movies only ran at certain times. So I was stuck with music videos. Yick!
Yeah, the newer, meat-marketish gym on campus that I used to frequent used to play MTV or MTV-U or whatever it was a few years back. It was all the hip-hop flavor of the day, which just made me want to crank my death metal a little louder to just make it all go away.
I went about six months thinking that “Ashanti” was a last name, and her first name was “Featuring.”
This is where I get convinced the devil is out to stop me from working out. I normally try to find a way to push harder…laughing at everything that is going wrong…
Oprah on the TV? Bring it on!!!!!!
I did get a really good laugh out of the closed captioning fucking up during one of those Progressive commercials featuring the “Flo” character. It hit me at a particular point, I guess, in which I was just laughing at how useless what they were saying was anyway.
“Would you like chchchchchchch?”
“Iiiiiiiiiiiii”
“Well wewewewewewewewe”
“Ggggggggggg”
“Yes!”
I totally get that. I’ve been known to get off the elliptical and call it a day, when my iPod dies. And I HATE the TV shows they used to show at the gym I had membership to a few years ago. All daytime soap crap or, yes, ladies golf. Which is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
I’m not sure if I’d rather watch soaps than golf. I’m thinking the answer is yes – soaps are at least unintentionally funny for some good percentage of the time.
See, this is what I hate about the Curves phenomenon. It’s too social for me, particularly since it is often a bunch of older ladies, a lot of whom haven’t broken a sweat in the entire time they’ve been going there (sorry, but my personal experience). Then they have this blaring music that is generally either oldies or Debbie Gibson-type ’80s, with the beeping every 30 seconds or whatever it is. Wearing your own music would require drowning out their music, thereby exploding an eardrum, as well as drowning out the beep that tells you to move to the next spot. And you can watch the other people for that, but if that’s your plan, the time lapses btwn stations is so short that by the time you see someone else moving and start to move yourself, you’ll do 2 reps before it’s time to move again. BLEH!
And, DAMN, is that a nice elliptical!
In-the-ear headphones like mine (the earplug-style, not just earbuds) work wonders at helping your music drown out theres. And they’re also handy at forestalling unwanted conversation. Still, I can understand your problem with the LOL’s chatting you up. No thanks.
And yes, it is a nice elliptical. Takes a little getting used to, though – the motion is kinda weird.
I’m sorry to laugh at your expense, but damn if I’m not doing it anyway. Sorry.
I was just thinking on my LONG walk at lunch that I need to get serious about buying an mp3 player for myself. Maybe that should be my next “reward.” I just know that when I’m on the verge of tiring out or giving up, certain music has the power to push me to go a lot longer. And it’s just more fun.
Laugh on, MacDuff…
I agree on both counts. You can always push yourself harder and not feel like you’re working it too hard with music.
I’ve heard that there is a spay gel that is supposed to help with the mechanism from wearing out fast from a elliptical crosstrainer,elliptical trainer, can anyone suggest a method?
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I feel like I’m the only person I know having a hard time on the CYBEX arc trainer with the resistance at fifteen. Didn’t know how out of shape I was.