My TreadClimber Diary

Over four years ago I bought a BowFlex TC5000 Treadclimber. Having moved my office to Boston’s suburban South Shore, I couldn’t find a local gym that compared to the Boston Athletic Club, which I frequented for a large portion of the 14 years that I spent working out of South Boston (Eymer Design and PARTNERS+simons).

Please keep in mind that the name, “Boston Athletic Club” (at least at the time) carried more potential marketing clout than the actual facilities, which consisted of a large metal building or two, conveniently located in an industrial warehouse district. I had a client who once described the neighborhood as having a great deal of potential for hosting a real-life murder scene. 

The one key advantage to membership? You could stay anonymous. Enter, hand over your membership card, grab a towel, do your 60 minute workout with headphones on and locked on the elliptical cross-trainer’s video display, shower, dress and quietly leave.

In a town where the Stop & Shop grocery store has been nicknamed “Stop & Chat,” the last thing that I wanted to do was join a club where it was necessary to socialize for hours on end.

After minutes of careful research, I decided that an in-house exercise machine would provide the cardiovascular fitness as well as the shroud of secrecy, that I so desired.

The buying/mating dance with the Treadclimber was similar to my experience knee-jerk acquisition of the boxed set of Tony Robbins, Personal Achievement Cassettes. I awoke at 3:00 AM in front of an alluring, late-night, TV infomercial and two weeks later was the proud owner of a product that was destined “change my entire life.”

Since then, I have logged nearly 700 hours of walking time. My TC5000 has been almost completely rebuilt once (thankfully there is a multiyear warranty and I have the patience of a saint) and now sounds like my grandmother’s Singer sewing machine, rolling down a steep hill, inside an empty 50 gallon oil drum. For other family members, the racket lasts for a mere 60 minutes, 5 times a week. I have saved my precious hearing, through modernly marvelous, noise-canceling headphones.

Buyer beware: without some form of distraction, walking in place within the confines of a 10’ x 10’ room (not to be confused with the floor plan of the Unabomber’s cabin) might drive even the calmest of treadmill users to the highest levels of insane boredom. 

For nearly the first 3 years, I watched entire TV seasons on my iPhone’s miniature screen. The Wire, 30 Rock, True Blood, Rubicon (HBO show that sadly lasted only one season), The Office, Modern Family, Mad Men, Lie To Me, LOST, and In Treatment–I watched them all–preventing myself from dozing off and hurling myself off the spinning rubber walkway, only to be awoken by the back of my head smacking the floor.

Enter the iPad, eBooks and my own, recently diagnosed ADD

There has always been a voice that constantly reminding me to read a book. It is the same voice that reminds me to, “Go outside and play before I turn into a houseplant,” or states–“If you were on TV, I would turn you off.”

After years of starting dozens of books, and unsuccessfully dozing off after only a few pages, I have found the perfect solution of crossing literary titles off of my book bucket list. My eBook loaded iPad is now routinely placed on the center console of my hamster wheel. While walking at a rapid clip and with the type jacked up to HUGE, I have checked off 25 titles.

Here is my list:

1. Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel J. Siegel
2. Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
3. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
4. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina
5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
6. Winning the Zero Moment of Truth - ZMOT by Jim Lecinski
7. Hamlet's Blackberry: a practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age by William Powers
8. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
9. The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach
10. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson 
11. The Complete Works of Mark Twain (Annotated) by Mark Twain
12. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Christopher Buckley
13. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
14. Candy by Terry Southern, Mason Hoffenberg
15. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
16. The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
17. Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill
18. Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
19. Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life by Fred Mandell, Kathleen Jordan
20. Live Wire by Harlan Coben
21. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
22. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
23. The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel by Garth Stein
24. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
25. The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick