Sometimes you just pray for video surveillance equipment, don’t you?
Mrs. Nitmos has been hitting the gym lately. While not a “runner”, she is an “exerciser.” (Note: Not an exorciser which would be really cool.) Usually, her exercising doesn’t include a treadmill. I can’t blame her. Those things are rotten sonsabitches as far as I’m concerned. I avoid running on them at all costs. When the weather gets real foul in December to February, I might be forced on them three to four times during that stretch but that is it for the year. I find waiting an extra day and shifting my schedule a bit usually does the avoidance trick most times.
Anyway, Mrs. Nitmos decided to pound out a mile on the mill just for kicks. This is where the comedy ensues.
She’s milling away listening to the soothing - not at all shrieky - sounds of Linkin Park on my mp3 player and enjoying a nice run. She reaches for the stop button but inadvertently hits the increase speed button. I never noticed an Increase Speed button on the gym treadmills but she swears it’s there. Probably near the flux capacitor.
You can see where this is going right?
ZOOM! Off the back crashing to the ground and slamming into the wall behind the mill. My mp3 player goes flying. Linkin Park can still be heard being angry about something from the hopelessly tangled ear phones in the corner. Just as hopelessly tangled? Mrs. Nitmos limbs. She claims that she hurt her back and heiny a bit but, though a little embarrassed, otherwise quickly stood back up and pretended she meant to do that by muttering something about “Plyometric training being a real bitch.” In my mind, she was cartoonishly tied up with legs over shoulders and an arm wrapped around the head. Two people had to help her untangle the limbs and stand up.
The good news is that my mp3 player wasn’t damaged (although Linkin Park seemed really pissed off next time I listened to it.) Mrs. Nitmos wasn’t seriously hurt.
The bad news is that the scoreboard now reads Treadmill 1, Mrs. Nitmos 0. And the gym doesn’t have video surveillance for me to submit this to America’s Funniest Home Videos and win $10,000 (or approximately 125 pairs of Asics.)
That treadmill has a little devil in it. Maybe it would be better if she was an exorciser after all.
Happy trails.
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I need some work. 3 x 800 at 2:54, 2:58, 3:02. Ugh, that ain't gonna beat 18 minutes in a 5k. I'm going to do some 400 repeats on Saturday (instead of the planned mile repeats) and then an 8 mile long run Sunday. Speed begins....now!
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31 comments:
I've always thought treadmills were the devil. This just proves it!
(glad she's okay. that can't have been fun)
Poor Mrs Nitmos! You must now do her bidding whenever she wants until she recovers fully from this incident. Which might be sometime in 2020. Maybe not even that soon.
"Speed begins....now!"
Uh huh, just keep telling yourself that from your perch on the couch. ;)
Nice weather for running this weekend. How fortuitous for everyone!
That is my worst fear!!!
I hope the ego wasn't too badly damamged.
But the question is, will she settle the score?
Poor Mrs. Nitmos! I'm glad she wasn't injured.
I bit it on an elliptical once. Aaaaaaannnnddd...I can never go back to that gym now.
You know what would be really funny, and exceedingly macho? If you went all Don Quixote-vs-the-windmills on that wife-tossing treadmill. Send that to America's Funniest Home videos.
I'm waiting for a follow-up post: Mrs. Nitmos Strikes Back. Probably an axe will feature in this sequel. That treadmill is doomed.
Glad Mrs. Nitmos is ok. I can totally see myself doing this, so I laughed all the way through the post.
OMG, Mrs. Nitmos, I feel your pain, now you can make a manslave out of Nitmos for as long as you can milk it!! Get back on that treadmill and show it who's boss!
on another note, thankgoodness the iPod is okay! LOL...
I am, quite frankly, surprised this hasn't happened to me yet. The worst I've done is lose balance and almost run off the side of the treadmill while trying to watch the TV they mysteriously hung really high and to the sides of all the treadmills.
So, apparently you were at the gym when this transpired--- did you act like you knew your wife or ignore her out of embarrasment and shame? (after of course rescuing your mp3 player).
At least your wife can operate the treadmill. My husband has no idea how to do this (and in fact he suggests the first and last time he used a treadmill was a few months ago with me present. But after/during the treadmill incident of '08 I quickly started pretending I did not know him).
He straddles the two sides of the belt of the treadmill then turns it on. He gets the speed up to 5 mph then leaps onto the treadmill belt holding the railings with a death grip.
He runs for about 20 minutes then decides his run is over. Instead of hitting the stop button or slowing the treadmill down, he attempts to hop off with one leg onto each side of the belt straddling it again.
This time he is not very successful. Sadly he does not end up flying through the glass partition behind the treadmill (cause that would have been awesome!), he instead gets one leg off but the other leg is still on the moving belt and sort of gets flung to the side. He is jettisoned from the treadmill by doing this really girly pirouette to the one side. Luckily he was not using my Ipod so it was out of danger, but I think some folks thought we were together.
I still shudder at the embarrassment and humiliation.
I'm a fan of Linkin Park too. When I'm forging through another miserable mile, nothing like a pissed off LP puts a little sunshine in my soul.
Your wife's treadmill must have sent mine a memo. More than an hour into my workout the other day while running 8mph, my treadmill suddenly stopped. Not slowed down gradually... just plain stopped. I lurched forward and had just enough time to grab the handlebars and holler an obscenity, much to the horror of the neighbor children playing in my yard (since I'm still running on my treadmill in the garage, of course).
Linkin Park could write a great song about that.
Yikes! Glad she's ok. At least she wasn't listening to something really embarrassing for all to hear when the buds flew from her ears. Like a RL podcast or something.
Soooo embarrassing....
Do you hear that?!? I think LP is writing a song about it now. Why are those dudes so angry? Teenage angst? I love their grooves, but damn they need to chillz the hellz out!
BTW, we will be hitting 4-0 at the same time. July 10'-did I just write that?!?
Tell Mrs. Nitomos that I empathize. Once landed on my butt on the treadmill at the gym and rode the belt all the way to the end and was deposited on the ground. No one even asked me if I was okay. They just looked away as if to lessen my embarassement. Blasted treadmills...
My husband fell of a treadmill once, too. I was pregnant at the time and on an eliptical near him. I could not stop laughing. All of a sudden the treadmil propelled him onto the ground. I am even laughing now when I remember his long and skinny body flying onto the ground. Ana-Maria
That is my biggest fear.
Poor thing. I've accidentally hit the emergency stop button before. I didn't fall off, but it was no fun either.
Poor Mrs. Nitmos. I'm glad she's OK!
she didn't even fake an injury, now that takes some courage. when I had a treadmill take me for a ride I demanded crutches.
"I never noticed an Increase Speed button on the gym treadmills but she swears it’s there. Probably near the flux capacitor."
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LMAO! Classic! I'm going to have to use that one in the future.
7x800 at 2:59 once a week should do it. I might try that myself.
Treadmills suck.. glad Mrs. N is OK.. she has enough abuse putting up with you and all... :) JK. Have a nice w/e, are you running Bayshore?
You should totally avenge Mrs. Nitmos. Some peanut butter in the flux capacitor should do the trick.
Aw, aren't you so considerate to think of her second after the MP3 player!
I would have felt bad but it would have been SO hard not to laugh and even harder to stop once I started.
Are you sure the missus wasn't just practicing her newest flying move?
I love how your "good news" first listed the state of your mp3 player then followed by the state of your wife. HILARIOUS!
Although I am glad that she's OK and hopefully not afraid to take on the 'mill again.
sheesh...I just posted about this possibility the other day! Those sneaky treadmills :) At least there was no one behind her...I always choose the treadmills near the back wall for that very reason ;)
You're a bad bad man! Still must have been funny!
I think there is a rebellion happening among the treadmills. I've heard way too many stories (by runners of all abilities) of flying off the treadmill. Way too often to be a coincidence.
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