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What I'm thinking about today is winter running. Winter running is, for me at least, a pretty important part of fitness, but here in the snowy wastes of Mid-to-Northern Michigan, it can become an afterthought. The issue at hand here is that I hate treadmills, with a fiery passion not unlike how much Napoleon hated being called "short." They're the bane to my existence: whenever I run on one for any appreciable length of time, I feel like my stride has rebelled against me and wants to separate my lower half from the upper half, a mutiny I do not much like when races come calling and I'm chopping away at the frozen concrete like a lumberjack. I'll put it this way: treadmills are to born-and-bred outdoor runners ("purists," you could say) as George W. Bush is to general English grammar: a face-palm nuisance at best and a pathetically ill-conceived monstrosity at their worst (cf: the world record for a 5k on a treadmill is nearly THREE MINUTES SLOWER than the track record; "Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better"). Not that I'm saying a nine-lap-mile track (approx. 177.778 meters/lap for those keeping score) is much better, but at least I can accurately track mileage and speed by use of a $5 watch and handy-dandy rudimentary mental math (daunting tasks like counting, addition, and, when necessary, division by numbers lower than six) instead of reading a bloody LCD screen that tells me (erroneously, might I add) that I'm running a 10:50 pace. Besides that, what the hell is the workout center layout coordinator's beef with runners? Honestly, do I really want to stare at a wall for thirty minutes while I traipse about and sweat all over a $600 machine (answer: not really[1]) or be peered at through a plate-glass window whilst the masses walk by and stare at my mutated running style (answer: this is actually slightly better [2])?
Back to this indoor track idea. You know, a nine-lap-to-mile track is not such a bad idea, especially with space in mind. It's pretty economical and counting to 9 is something most collegiate runners can master (don't go above 5k on the thing though, you'll lose your marbles and want to race NASCAR). The only issue with the current layout is its three lanes. Yes, three: walkers, joggers, runners. Except no one follows the "outside>slowest" rule: it's always "let's walk three abreast and glare at you angrily every lap you have to squeeze between us for disturbing our (ultimately trivial) discussion about how we're going to walk off these beer guts (which they never will)" instead. If I wanted to dodge hips, I would go to a bar or strip club instead.
Case in point: the beard stays until fitness centers pull their faces clear of their radioactive assholes.
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