“i smell toast…and almonds. i smell almond toast.”

scenes from the gym.

i managed to get there ONLY because, in what can only be described as a modern-day miracle if you’re waxing supremely hyperbolic (and i am–and it’s true), i found my headphones.

i walk into the cardio room and the rec sports worker tells me that they’re filming today.

“i’m sorry. WHAT?”

“they’re filming today. they say there will be no definitive faces. they’re doing a story on mumbledrownedoutbytreadmills and it’ll probably be on the news.”

staring for the briefest of moments, i chuckle.

“oookay.”

thank heavens i wore a hat and sort of shaved my legs, right? gosh, what would i have done if you know I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO THE GYM SO WHY DO I HAVE TO LOOK GOOD ANYWAYS?

luckily, my corner treadmill was available. oh, how i love it.

i notice that the camera crew, consisting of one woman all dressed in black wielding a tripod and seriously small camera, has trained this no-definitive-face-recording camera in the opposite direction.

phew. bullet dodged.

into mile one, all warmed up and starting to sweat, the tripod moves. i’m trying to stay zen about it. i’m listening to the top 20 request countdown on XM radio, which actually doesn’t completely suck and is oddly appropriate for a workout, so you know, what does it matter? i mean, so what if i might possibly end up on t.v. while on the treadmill. big deal. maybe it will show that people not in tiny shorts, shaped like a stick (no offense to those of you who…well…might resemble a stick), or training to be a treadmill olympian value their cardiovascular health.

this is the narrative inside of my head, which is fought by the one that is screaming ACK! CAMERA! I LOOK HORRIFYING!

you know how it goes.

it just moves across the room and is trained away from my far corner, so i concentrate on counting my quarter-mile laps in the attempt to not pay attention to how long i’ve been walking. around lap 10 or something, when i’d amped up the speed and was very, very grateful for “elevator” coming on even though i am oddly suspicious of the lyrics that i wasn’t really listening to, and was trying to remember how to breathe, the tripod moves again.

ten feet away.

trained directly onto the three treadmills in a line–the last of which is currently punishing me. there’s no way i am not in this shot. there’s no way that, if this footage is on the news, my butt will not be prominently displayed.

WHY? WHY, OH UNIVERSE? WHY MUST I BE TAPED WHILE WALKING?

whatever. once the tripod was gone, i promptly forgot about it because cute miss i’m adorable and i am flirting with the boys in the gym came in all smiley. i think i was on lap 12 or 13 at this point, and really did not understand in any way why she was smiling.

what’s so funny? you got a secret joke? what’s the deal?

yeah, i get a little surly at the end of mile 3.

but that even didn’t matter because around lap 14, it was all i could do to keep stepping. because the bottom of my foot started burning. burning the burning burn of death. it felt like my seam of my sock had twisted around and started rubbing the bottom of my foot with a fury of a thousand suns.

(remember…hyperbolic.)

i thought about stopping. i really did. but then i was like…one more lap. and then rihanna’s “please don’t stop the music” came on and the music was pumping and then i only had one more lap and i just kept going and then i was done.

because apparently the fury of a thousand suns is preferable to failing at life…again.

upshot of all of this:

i was wearing a hat so i looked cuter than i normally do, all sweaty like. also…hats=incognito, right? except when you’re the only one wearing a hat and you just told the internets about it. super.

i got the treadmill up to 3.9 and i didn’t fall off the end of it. i’m on a mission to see just how fast i can go without running.

i burned a bajillion calories. i just looked. lotsa.

i got home just in time for gilmore girls. yes, that’s twice in one day.  shut up.

i get to buy new shoes because there was nothing wrong with the socks. i’m pretty sure the nikes that i’ve had for a while now are just not up for the challenge. i guess, given the choice of not getting filmed or shoe shopping (even if it is for dumb workout shoes and not adorable patterned flats), i’ll take shoe shopping.

anyday.