Two weeks of training on my LegXercise Ellipse motorized under-desk foot-mover transformed me from a never-exerciser into an elite marathoner. The Ellipse (as seen on TV every three minutes) is a high-tech, passive exercise machine that moves your feet forward and backward while you sit.
Active Running is outdated. It’s what cavemen did to escape a nagging mate. Active Running requires that you risk being killed when your shoelace snags in the belt of a treadmill, or go outside. In either scenario, you have to move your own legs and feet. With the foot-mover, you can sit anywhere, even on the toilet, and let the machine do the work.
The foot-mover has three speeds. Low, Medium, and You’re Gonna Puke. At the highest speed, your feet are moved back and forth at a five-mile-per-hour pace. Over the past two weeks, I spent six hours a day with my feet moving at YGP-speed on the Ellipse. That’s how much I wanted to become a world-class marathoner. Since my feet traveled the equivalent of 30 miles daily, I was overtraining for a 26.2-mile race.
Yesterday, I won the First Annual LegXercise Passive Runners Marathon. I was one of twenty elite athletes who took their foot-movers to Regal Cinema and sat watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy as we ran. Since every competitor had their Ellipse set at YGP, we all finished at the same time. So, we were all winners. We also all puked when Pippin started singing to Lord Denethor.
Today, I’m going to beat 50,000 Active Runners at their own game by winning the Chicago Marathon. Being seated while my feet were pushed around means my legs didn’t take a pounding. Having the joints of a newborn gives me a huge advantage over my competitors, who’ve destroyed their knees by actually running.
I’m proudly wearing LegXercise-branded athleisure wear: knee-length denim shorts with the Ellipse logo embroidered on the back pockets, and a white cotton Beefy-T with a decoupage foot-mover across my chest. The Active Runners all wear breathable, moisture-wicking singlets and polyester shorts. Like a flock of brightly colored sheep.
We start in twenty minutes. I need to warm up. The sheep are jumping in place, stretching, and doing short sprints. I’m sitting on a folding chair, doing a couple of fast miles on the foot-mover. I throw up a pile of corkscrew pasta because—YGP.
As the gun goes off, I sprint up to draft behind the pacers. That’s what an elite marathoner does. After a few yards, my inner thighs start to burn. At the first aid tent, they remove my jean shorts, smear Vaseline on my groin, and send me back out with disposable hospital shorts that flap loudly in the wind.
Five minutes later, both hammies cramp. Hard. Moving my own legs is just not working for me.
A light rain soaks my Beefy-T. It’s refreshing at first, but now I’m in pain. At the first aid tent, they peel off my foot-mover t-shirt. My nipples look like purple raisins. If raisins could bleed.
Now my feet hurt. I’ve become a frequent flyer at the medical tent. They remove my shoes and socks, along with a couple of my toenails. After I win this race, I’m going to limit my participation to LegXercise-sanctioned marathons.
It’s been just under two hours and I see the finish line. I’m not only going to win this thing, I’m going to set a world record.
Update. When I blast through the tape, a man introducing himself as the “race director” tells me I’ve only gone three blocks and still have the 26-mile out-and-back loop to do. Nope. I’m done with Active Running. I snag a finisher’s medal because I damn well earned it.
No matter what the rude “director” thinks, I’m still a winner. I have a three-year contract to star in LegXercise Ellipse foot-mover commercials that will be aired twenty times every hour.
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Tobi Pledger is an avian-exotic veterinarian and writer who lives in North Carolina with her husband and a flock of birds. She has been published in Catamaran, The Sun, Slackjaw and Defenestration. See more of her work at: tobipledger.com.