The gym was crowded, a rhythmic cacophony of clanking weights and humming belts. I stepped onto Treadmill 4, right next to a guy who looked like he’d been carved out of granite. He didn’t look at me. He just stared straight ahead, his legs moving with a terrifying, effortless efficiency.
In that moment, a switch flipped in my brain. It wasn’t about my health anymore; it was about dominance.
I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill racing the guy next to me.
I watched his hand out of the corner of my eye. Every time he reached for the console, my hand mirrored him. I upped my speed every time he did. If he went to a 6.5, I went to a 6.6. If he hit an incline, I went one degree higher.
Within fifteen minutes, the “fun” had evaporated. I was sweating, gasping for air, and my vision was starting to tunnel. My lungs felt like they were filled with hot sand, and my legs were screaming for a ceasefire. But I couldn’t stop. I was determined to win. I was the protagonist in a sports movie, and this random stranger in neon shorts was my nemesis.
Finally, after half an hour of pure, unadulterated torture, he began to slow down. I held my sprint for ten seconds longer—a final, definitive flex—and then slammed the stop button.
When I finally stopped, I had to grip the handrails to keep from collapsing. I stood there, feeling victorious, waiting for him to acknowledge his defeat.
He slowed his machine to a halt, wiped his forehead with a towel, and took off his headphones. He turned to me, but there was no respect in his eyes. There was only deep, genuine concern.
“‘Are you okay?’” he asked, his voice echoing in the sudden silence of my ears. “‘You look like you’re having a medical emergency.’“.
The realization hit me harder than the treadmill belt ever could. He didn’t know we were racing. He had probably just been listening to a podcast about history while I was nearly suffering a cardiac event next to him. I managed a weak, trembling thumbs-up before staggering toward the locker room, realizing that the only thing I had actually won was thirty minutes of unnecessary misery and the reputation of being the gym’s most alarming runner.