Cracked Treadmills and Driveway Dashes

Did you ever think you would live through a global pandemic?  I sure didn’t. 

It started out as a weird virus in China towards the end of 2019.  Hubby and I watched it all unfold from afar for a while, we were particularly concerned since his daughter lived in Beijing.  The sneaky infection allegedly started its rounds in Wuhan, but quickly spread throughout China.  It wasn’t long before the virus decided to broaden its horizons and infected the rest of the world.  South Africa wasn’t spared, registering its first positive case on 5 March 2020. 

Lockdown and locked in

The statistics and impact were scary enough to mobilise decisive action from government, resulting in the President declaring a Nationwide lockdown, effective from 26 March 2020.  The initial lockdown was referred to as a hard lockdown, one of the most stringent in the world.  Initially declared for a period of 21 days, government ultimately extended the hard lockdown to 35 days. 

Normal life ground to an eerie halt, schools and business were closed and, together with the rest of the world, we stayed at home.  When the President had made his announcement about the lockdown, there had been an element of confusion on the topic of exercise.  This was soon clarified, and we realised that, for the duration of level 5, lockdown also meant locked in.  Exercising outside of the perimeter of one’s home was not permitted.

 

What?!  Insert many swear words here - Eish, this was going to suck.  A lot. 

Globally people were having to adjust to what was soon referred to as the “new normal”.  The economic impact of locking people inside their homes had sickening consequences, jobs were being shed quicker than one could utter “Jack Robinson” and the infection rate was sky rocketing.  Both Gerhard and I took the situation seriously, stocked up on essentials and tried to avoid leaving home unnecessarily.  Logically I knew the situation was bigger than me and my exercise concerns, however, understanding the concept versus actually living it was something else entirely.  In a normal world I run and walk a lot.  The idea of not being able to leave the confines of our yard was just dreadful.  Gerhard understood and tried to console me by reminding me that I could run on the treadmill.  He looked concerned, probably more for his well-being than mine.  He knew I would be impossible to live with if I wasn’t able to run. 

Treadmill for the win

As the start of lockdown loomed ever closer, I started to realise how lucky I was to have a treadmill.  Forget panic buying of loo paper - treadmills and gym equipment were selling out like hot cakes.  Treadmills were soon out of stock almost everywhere, and those that were available in the shops were frightfully expensive. 

My treadmill (aka dreadmill) would certainly come into its own, it had suddenly become invaluable.  More out of interest than need, I measured the perimeter of our yard, in total it was just shy of 100 meters (which included the driveway).  Again I was thankful for my dreadmill, running laps around the house was not at all appealing.

It was all fun and games until day 23 of lockdown dawned.  Saturday mornings called for long runs and I was finishing up a 15km run on my trusty tready.  The music blared loudly from the treadmill’s tinny speakers, and the sun was shining outside.  With just under 1km to go before I reached 15km, I tried not to think about the fact that it would have been a perfect day for a run on the road.  Lockdown (and locked in) would still be in place for another 12 long days.

I reached for my neon orange bottle stashed in the holder to the left of the console and chugged down some water.  Without warning and of its own accord the treadmill slowly started to increase its incline.  I wondered whether I had perhaps accidentally bumped something, I certainly hadn’t done anything to tell the dreadmill to increase to maximum incline.

I pushed the ‘decrease incline’ button.

Nothing happened…

I pushed the decrease incline button again, a bit more assertively that second time around.

… nothing happened!

I started to get a little worried when I realised that none of the other buttons on the treadmill console worked either.  Eventually I resorted to using the emergency stop option.  The treadmill belt stopped moving, and I climbed off. 

I tried to troubleshoot the problem.  When all else failed, my philosophy was to switch errant electronics off and then on again.  Switching the machine off and on didn’t help, neither did unplugging it from the wall.  The situation was dire, I was starting to panic.  I went on the hunt for the husband, he was much smarter than I was at this kind of stuff, I was hopeful that he would figure it out. 

It’s busted

I probably looked as upset as I felt since Gerhard needed no prompting to abandon whatever he had been busy with and immediately came to my aid.  He suspected that there was an electrical fault somewhere and removed the cover from the motor.  I was doing a perfectly awful job of pretending to be calm, and hovered nearby.  Gerhard poked around a little, checked the connections, wiggled some of the wiring and switched the machine on and off (this time around the incline dropped back to normal).  He eventually concluded that everything seemed to be fine.  It seemed I had been mistaken, there was nothing wrong.  I felt a right idiot for sounding a false alarm about my malfunctioning treadmill, although under the circumstances I really didn’t mind being wrong.  My elation was short lived as I heard him say ‘this doesn’t look right’.

‘What doesn’t look right?’ I asked and peered over his shoulder to see what the problem was.

He shifted out of the way and I almost immediately wished that he had remained where he was.  The steel frame of my treadmill had cracked.  ‘Well that’s a problem’ I stated the obvious as I incredulously poked at the crack (as if that was going to change anything).  I had heard of numerous things that could go wrong with a treadmill, a cracked frame had never made it to the list.  It takes true talent to crack the treadmill, I thought to myself as I went in search of my cellphone. 

I made contact with the supplier, and explained the situation. He was very apologetic and told me that it appeared that my machine had a factory flaw, apparently ‘this had never happened before’.  Absolutely typical, just my luck, I thought to myself.  The good news was that the machine was still under warranty and I would receive a new one.  The bad news was that nothing could be done until the lockdown restrictions were eased.  

ARGH!

Gerhard tried to do a repair job with a spanner type thingy (that’s the technical term) that he found in the toolbox, but the sad reality was that my treadmill was busted (another technical term).  I could use it, but would need to tread very carefully to avoid smashing the innards of the machine to smithereens. It was going to be a long 12 days until we moved to level 4 of lockdown. 

Driveway dash

I had no alternative other than to make the best of the situation. 

I refused to contemplate not running at all and grudgingly resorted to trotting the garden route around our house.  The driveway dash was a novelty that soon wore off.  Running endless loops around the house was not my idea of fun, and posed innumerable risks that I had never considered.  Our seemingly pretty garden was a veritable obstacle course, and one could very easily decapitate oneself on the gate latch, trip over the uneven drain covers or twist an ankle on the wonky paving.  Gerhard effaced himself most days, although on one or two occasions I did spot him shaking his head a little as he made his way from the kitchen to the relative peace and quiet of our bedroom with his morning coffee. Our little grumpy cat was even less impressed by my antics, yelled at me a few times and eventually sought refuge on top of the wall as I ran around and around and around like a crazy person. 

I have come to the conclusion that crazy is relative.  Before the pandemic, I had adjusted to people describing me as such for running a marathon, a half marathon or even a parkrun.  In the midst of a global pandemic expectations needed to be adjusted, crazy was managing to run kilometers around the house, and recognition was definitely in order if one managed to do so without injuring oneself.  At the end of it all runners are a very unique bunch of people, give us a challenge and we will almost always tackle it head on. 

I sincerely hope that there is no need for a return to hard lockdown and garden runs, although I am happy to report that the supplier somehow managed to source a replacement treadmill for me.  One thing that I know for sure is that I will never take the freedom and joy of the open road for granted ever again.

‘Sometimes the best way to appreciate something is to be without it for a while’ 

Unknown