In which our heroes aid the economy

Big news in the Brennan household: we bought a treadmill.  See, this is what happens when you foolishly commit to a half-marathon and then realize that winter running just isn’t happening with sufficient regularity.

The plan was to go down to the Hampshire Mall (about an hour and change south of here) to see Avatar in 3D, and then just go looking at treadmills at Sears. This was on Sunday. An hour or two before we were set to leave, I went online to do a little research, and learned that the mall with the Sears is five exits farther south than the mall with the movie. Duh. (Us rural folk don’t get out much; it’s a good thing we have access to the interweb up here.)

So off we go. Turns out the mall with the movie is a little farther than we expected, and we made it with maybe one minute to spare, finding seats just as the trailers were starting. We couldn’t find seats together, sadly. By the way, it ROCKED. (We’d already seen it in 2D).

Because no blog post is complete without lots of pictures, I will now insert a picture of Neytiri:

Back to our tale.

After the movie, we went to (ick! ick!) a nearby Walmart, just to check out their offerings. And then we headed to the Sears, a half hour away. To make a long story short, we decided to just go ahead and get one, rather than go home to do more research on all the specific models they had, and then have to make another trip.

We went with a Nordictrack Elite zi – last year’s model, no longer available this year, and hugely on sale as a result. We’ve since read reviews, and it turns out we got a great machine at a great price. We elected to get a five-year warranty as well. We really, really, really wanted to pay another $65 and have it delivered and installed, but alas, we live too far away to qualify. The salesguy told us not to worry, assembling it wasn’t that big a deal, 25 minutes, tops.

So, undeterred, we took it home with us. The box, the approximate size and weight of a fully-loaded coffin, barely fit in the Escape. We tied the back door down with clothesline, I bundled up under a sleeping bag in the passenger seat, and we sped home.

When we arrived home around 8:15 pm, the temperature had dropped to below ten.

Plan A was to back the truck up to the deck, and crab-walk it across the deck and through the sliding glass door. This plan tanked when the truck (4WD and all) failed to get traction and got mired in snow.

Plan B was to get it up these stairs:

Did I mention how heavy this thing is? We got it to where it was lying on the stairs, but for the life of me I couldn’t lift my share enough. The box was also starting to look a little worse for wear.

Plan C, to give up and call for reinforcements the next day, was nixed by other, more resilient people.

We finally resorted to Plan D: disassemble the box in situ, and carry the pieces up one by one.

The mangled box.

This worked fine until we got to the heaviest component, which is the treadmill itself and the stone troll that lives inside it and makes it actually work. (I can’t think of any other reason why it should weigh so much.)

Unfortunately, even this piece was too heavy for yours truly to heft it up these stairs.  So we came up with Plan D - Corollary A, which is where we carried (read: staggered) it across the lawn (read: snow field) to the deck, put it on a piece of cardboard, and slid it across the deck.

Total time to unload the truck? One hour. (I did already whine about the temperature, right? You haven’t forgotten that part?)

Two days later, the evidence is still there, mocking me for my wussiness.

The next day, Kevin got started on assembling it. It quickly turned into a two-person job. It did NOT take 25 minutes – it took considerably longer. But it wasn’t that bad, to be honest. Although we’re both still sore, and I sprained my thumb. No matter.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

Here it is, in “hurry up and use me” mode…

…and here it is, in “shhhh, I’m resting” mode. 

  

Here’s my view from the deck. We could conceivably turn this thing around to face the TV, but then it would block the slider door even when in folded-up position. No worries: it has an iPod jack and speakers, of all the decadent things.

So we set it up yesterday, and we’ve each used it once, and I’m about to use it again. No more excuses not to run! Hooray!