Confessions: The Day I Broke Up with the Treadmill

     It was a fateful day in January of 2011. Me and the Treadmill had been going steady for several years now...in fact, we practically had a date lined up 4 times a week! On this particular day, I was jamming to some music (probably Shane and Shane, Shawn McDonald, or Bethany Dillon), and I was running at a good pace. I was lookin' good in my shorts and T-shirt, ponytail, and sweaty face. All of a sudden, I found myself holding onto the handlebars for dear life, legs slamming against the belt with every rotation.

     It was like a slow-motion movie. I had the time to think to myself, "if you want to get off of this treadmill, you have to just let go. Ready 1,2,3!" And on 3, I release my hands and my body rolled off the belt and I to the ground. 

     A bloody and embarrassed mess, I attempted to quickly collect myself as I looked up at the fellow treadmill runners staring at me with gaping mouths. "Are you okay?!" one girl asked. "Oh my GOODness! What happened?!" exclaimed another. And just as I rose to my wobbly feet, the very cute boy who sat at the weight room desk came running over to help me. 

"It..it..was a clumsy mistake!" I mumbled, with burning cheeks and stinging eyes. 

"Are you sure?" He asked with a concerned look. "Maybe you should sit down."

"Thank you, but I'm fine....I'll be fine," I assured him as I picked up my iPod off the floor and grabbed my water bottle, "thanks for coming to check on me though!"

     And with that, I walked to the waiting room, painfully aware of my throbbing shins and knees, burned raw from the fast track of the treadmill belt.

I still have the scars on my legs from that day, and it makes a pretty good story now! But I never have gotten back on one, and I don't plan on it. It was a clean break-up... and I won't turn back!