Treadmill (yuck), trail (yeah) and gym etiquette

I know I should be grateful for the massive quantities of snow. Not only do we desert dwellers need the water to drown our lawns next spring, but the snow enables us to do a lot of really enjoyable activities like skiing, snowmobiling and sledding.

But the amount of snow we've been blessed with the last two weeks has forced me to spend a lot more time in the gym. First of all, I hate, with every fiber of my being, running on a treadmill. There are not enough good songs on my iPod or interesting infomercials on the television to distract me from the fact that I am running in place.

See, the beauty of running is that once you get going, you have to run home — or back to the car. On the treadmill, I am almost constantly tempted to stop. Not only that, but running outside is beautiful. It's different every day and it smells wonderful.

The gym, well, even when it's clean I wouldn't describe the scent as wonderful. It also makes me tired to listen to other people huff and puff and, yes, quit. It makes me think I should stop, even when I'm not yet tired. Running on the treadmill tires my mind, and as we runners know, endurance issues are mostly mental battles.

So I try to shame myself into running my required distances.

"Everyone knows you're cheating," I tell myself. "They know you're supposed to run five miles, and you're quitting at three. They know you're lazy, and they're going to tell Neil (my trainer)."

This works for about a half mile. I never have been very motivated by negative energy. So then I try positive thinking.

"You are not in the gym." I visualize the trail. "You are tougher than this. You feel great. You are running toward a goal, not on a treadmill. You are not tired. You will not quit. You love the treadmill."

This actually works more often, although once, when I had a headset on, I actually started to whisper it out loud. Not nearly as embarrassing, though, as the time I started singing "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks on the stair climber.

Being in the gym more often has made me more keenly aware of a few etiquette issues. First of all, while we're all in the gym hoping to improve our physical fitness, we cannot all bench 400 pounds or squat 600 pounds. So those of you who insist on loading up every machine with every plate you can find, please do us wimps a favor and put them back when you're finished.