The Hamster Wheel

Now is not the time for discretionary spending, or so I'm told on a daily basis by myriad of talking heads on TV. Well, last weekend we chose to be contrarians and made our first non-essential 'stuff' purchase of the year: a treadmill. And this was not my doing.


For whatever reason, Dana hates running outside, but she wants to workout without the hassle of driving to the gym. Considering the limited time she has during the week, with her daily commute to Denver, I don't blame her.

My typical reaction to dropping in excess of three digits on non-essential 'stuff' (outright opposition) was assuaged by the fact that a new (cheap) treadmill works out to be more affordable than an annual gym membership, and it saves me from wimping out or suffering through runs on really brutal winter weather days.

So it was that we found ourselves touring big-box stores in search of an affordable piece of equipment. Thankfully, we only needed to tour two of these consumer castles before settling on our model: a Weslo something or other.


It has already found a home downstairs in the guest bedroom, and after taking it for a six-mile spin yesterday I have decided that it works just fine, but the view is good for a few minutes only.


I fear I will have to set up some kind of diversion (read: TV) to relieve the Boredom of the Treadmill, if I'm going to use it on a regular basis. Fortunately, people are ditching TVs at a rate of knots as they prepare for the forced switch to digital. This means cheap or free TVs by the boatload on Craigslist. Stack up a good movie or two, plug the TV into the DVD machine and you're good for hours.

As much as I hate running on these hamster wheels, they do offer comfort from arctic temperatures, while also allowing for structured workouts. We'll see how much use it gets, but hopefully it will get at least $277 worth before it packs up and dies, as all electronic devices are destined to do sooner or later.