Breaking a Sweat: It never ends!

Just when I think that I've encountered all the characters at the gym, another one comes along.  Today I was minding my own business, listening to my ipod and running nowhere on the treadmill, when I was thoroughly amused by another interesting person.

I can't even come up with a category for this lady, so I'll just describe her. I have to mention that to my right there were at least ten treadmills that were not being used.  This lady, probably in her late 50's - early 60's, picks the treadmill right next to mine.  Now, if the gym is super-crowded, this would not be a problem, but come on!!  Look at all those treadmills just waiting for someone to walk or run on them - WHY do you have to pick the one right next to me?

She spends about five minutes trying to hang her jacket on a hook that is just out of reach in front of her treadmill, leaning a little too closely in my direction as she's doing this.  She finally gives up, gets off the treadmill, and then proceeds to get onto the treadmill directly to my left.  Then she spends another five minutes trying to hang up her coat again. Ugh - my first thought was - hey, there's a huge coat rack with hangers in the back of the gym - hang your coat there!! She finally succeeds and then spends another 2-3 minutes folding and re-folding her towel, hanging it on the treadmill, taking it off, hanging it again, taking it off, etc, etc.  After what seems to be an eternity she finally turns on the treadmill and walks for a whole two minutes before turning it off, grabbing her coat and towel and walking away.

Now - I'm not sure what was going on there.  Several things crossed my mind:

1.  She has a very short attention span and cannot focus on an activity for more than a few minutes.
2.  She really liked my new workout outfit and was doing all these fidgety things just to get a better look.
3.  She realized that she left the oven on and rushed home to make sure her house didn't burn down.
4.  She is new to the gym and realized "Hey, I'm not cut out for this."
5.  Maybe she just didn't like the way I smelled and decided to get the heck out of there.

Who knows!  All I know is that I managed to run 2.7 miles on the treadmill in 30 minutes, not bad for not running for about a month.  I'm confident now that I will be able to run 5 miles in less than an hour by March 26th, which is when I am planning to run the first leg of the half marathon relay with my two friends, Stacey and Jill.  Let the training begin!