Yellow Mustard Blog

There I was on the treadmill. I was envisioning a giant piece of cheese floating just out of my reach, urging me to run on and on, faster and faster, on my little unending strip of track. No matter how fast or long I ran that track didn't stop appearing below my feet, nor did the cheese get any closer to my grasp. I feel haunted by the need to run, run on this never-ending track, not knowing how or why I got there, only knowing that I have to run, run, run and maybe someday, I'll catch up to that cheese.
I will never catch up with that damn cheese.
(When I'm at the gym, I like to put myself into the mind of a laboratory mouse trapped in a mousewheel...because really, there is no other way to endure being on the treadmill. What a hateful, sadistic invention. )

So anywho, I'm on the 'mill when I notice the t-shirt of the man on the bike in front of me. (The exercise bike is another twisted gym invention: Pedal, pedal, pedal!!! You're Lance Armstrong!! You're winning the Tour de France! No, you're pedaling your ass off in the basement gym at the Cleveland YMCA and you're not going anywhere. Ever.)

The man's shirt said: "Pain is just weakness leaving the body."
Upon reading this, I almost came to a screeching halt on my treadmill. But thank God I didn't. (Another maniacal element of the treadmill...unlike ordinary ground, which stays put once you stop running on it, the treadmill actually launches you BACKWARDS at 7mph and usually into some pointy Stairmaster machine.)

I just couldn't grasp the t-shirt's statement. Pain is not weakness leaving the body. The only stuff that usually leaves the body when you're at the gym is sweat, blood, tears or internal organ goo, and those aren't pain, they're called bodily fluids.

Let me tell you about pain. Pain is having your sock somehow bunch up in your shoe while you're running, cause your toes to curl and eventually gnarl your entire foot in a cramp. And then stop running and you're shot off the treadmill like a stuntman in a circus cannon.

Pain is having your one shoe lace tied tighter than the other, which somehow throws off your entire running stride and injures your knee. You see, the one foot is jealous of how tightly your other foot is tied into your Adidas crosstrainer. To spite you, the loose foot tries to slide out of the shoe while you're running. Of course, you try to bend down and adjust it while running, lose your balance and get hurled off the treadmill into a row of spinning bikes.

And pain doesn't have to be purely physical. Pain can be running next to the girl that is clutching the precious remote for the TVs and puts on As the World Turns. It would be ok because there's another TV next to it...but it's playing baseball...minor league baseball. No worries though, even if you wanted to watch it, you can't. Every time you turn your head towards that TV, you're sprayed with a good amount sweat from the enormous man next to you. He weighs about 300lbs, is covered in a thick layer of winter fur, and has decided to run 9mph at an 8% incline...while throwing punches. You cower to the furthest corner of your treadmill to avoid Shamu's soak zone. Just when you think it can't get any worse, sandwiched between soap operas and sweaty bears, you trip on your shoelace and get launched off the treadmill and into a pack of ravenous anorexic girls. They haven't eaten in weeks, and you smell like Slimfast.

Yes. THAT is pain. It doesn't leave the body...it SURROUNDS you at the gym. You are inundated with physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and botanical pain every time you step foot in one. So do yourself a favor and don't go to the gym. I wish I could do the same, but until I can get to that piece of cheese at the end of my treadmill...I'm going to have to endure.