How not to join a gym

I kinda embarrassed myself. But not much.

I went running at a gym. My feet have been really messed up lately and I thought the best thing for them (besides not running at all) would be to run on a soft, even treadmill. I had one of those "come try our gym free" passes so I gave it a try.

I don't like gyms. They make me feel uncomfortable, like I don't belong there. And I was even more self-conscious since this was my first time there and I was one of those cheapskates looking for a free workout. Fortunately, it wasn't too crowded. There were a couple of Rather Large Gentlemen walking (strutting) around which didn't help, but I found a treadmill off to the side where I could just do my thing quietly without drawing any attention to myself.

I was running for about 35 minutes (which is super-long for me on a treadmill; I get bored after about, oh, 3 minutes) and I thought I'd do a little interval. I put a buph song on the iPod ("Praise Him" by Fatboy Slim), hit the "Faster!" button a bunch of times and went for it. And I was feeling pretty good for about 60 seconds. Then all of a sudden the treadmill just stopped. Thankfully I didn't fall, but the thing just started beeping like crazy. "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP..." I hit every button I could find but couldn't get it to shut up. I had to go to the front desk and say "um, I kinda broke your machine." One of the trainers came over and couldn't get it to reset, so it wasn't just a minor bug. Not exactly the low-profile I was hoping for.

I know that treadmills break down all the time. But deep down, I like to think that I was running so fast on it that it just couldn't keep up with me.