Quick Start

I'm awake super early, mentally dealing splendidly with issues I can do nothing about at 4AM on a Monday morning. I struggle for sleep, give up at 5 and head for the gym.

I'm grumpy and sleep deprived, the perfect combination for a workout, toss in the fact that I forgot LT's seven circles of hell workout she made for me and I decide to do the machines.

It's been forever since I tried an elliptical so why not?

I decide on the above machine, I believe it's called the "XT One Pathway to Madness" and start peddling. Right when I'm about to stop peddling and look for an "on" button the display cuts on, offering a smorgasbord of options. I figure the nine hundred CPUs in this thing need a fair amount of power to function.

I'm staring at the display, I DON'T KNOW! It's like 5:30 in the morning and do I want to walk, run, hike or climb??? I jab "walk" and try to get to the next screen. What I want to do is get a good workout (sweaty) for fifteen minutes and then move to a spinner for another fifteen minutes before bitching to you about it in this blog. 

How do I enter time? And I want to experience X Mode ("a builtin personal trainer to motivate you with intense intervals") but I can't enter time. 

Frustrated I move one machine down since it looks like the kind I use to use. And it's just different enough to present a challenge for yours truly. 

I choose "fat burn" having recently caught myself in the mirror. Next it asks for age, then weight and finally time. I enter all of that happy crap, press start and the machine turns off.

The stream of profanity that erupts from my mouth is enough to immediately embarrass me. Iron Man and the other dude don't need to hear it! Other dude strolls over and tells me I need to peddle to get the machine to turn on. I take a deep breath, thank him and resume peddling. I enter all the stuff needed and press "enter" this time and I'm off and ellipticalling. 

After that I did fifteen on the spinner and called it a day.

I catch LT in the lobby area and mention my challenges with the ellipticals.

She informs me, "What you should do with all of the machines here is press 'Quick Start' and go."

Good to know.