Knocking myself out

I almost killed myself with an ancient NordicTrack machine a couple of days ago.

Remember NordicTrack machines? They mimicked cross-country skiing and were all the rage in the late 80s.

I was whining to a friend (Descarte said "I whine, therefore I am," so I must be ...) that I wasn't getting as much time on a bicycle as I was used to -- 17 degree weather here in New York, icy roads and no absolute need, thanks to mass transit, had reduced my cycling urge to zero -- and, while I was walking quite a bit, I missed the aerobic part of the exercise. My friend said she had an old NordicTrack machine folded up in a closet under layers of old clothes that created a sort of archaeological dig of her passing tastes. She figured it might still work and I figured it was worth a shot, so I dragged it back to my place.

That should have been aerobic enough, but then I set the machine up. It was a simple device. A flywheel attached to rollers for the "skis" and a jointed upright that held a spool of rope with a tension nob in the center and a handle on each end to simulate ski poles. Truly, it was a marvel of exercise engineering.

I climbed aboard and started sliding my feet and pulling on the rope. It didn't go well.

I found myself doing the exercise equivalent of rubbing my head and patting my belly while reciting the alphabet backward under the steady gaze of a state trooper at 3 a.m. on New Years Day. My legs were sliding and my arms were pumping, but my legs were fighting my arms, my arms were fighting my ass and my center of gravity was fighting my center of gravity. It was a grave situation.

Then I noticed there was a leather-like pad about stomach high and about a foot in front of me on the machine's upright arm. I'm not a particularly smart guy, but I know that leather goes with sliding and pumping like tuna goes with egg noodles and cream of mushroom soup. I thought, "Gee. I'll bet that's got a purpose. And, I'll bet that purpose is to give the exercising person something to brace against so gravity doesn't kick the slats out from under his center."

I angled the upright toward me. This moved the pad close enough to me that I could press it against my hips. The move also moved the upper level of the upright into a more vertical position so I was pulling down on the ski poles. It seemed more ski-polesque. And, it worked. I was foot-sliding and arm-pumping at 15 kph. The Nordic wind was whistling over my bald spots, and I was whistling an Alpine hiking tune.

Then the upright lurched closer to me. My ass lost center and found gravity. I started to fall over backward. There was flailing.

My deep genetic connection to northern Europe screamed, "Use the poles!"

I yanked on the arm ropes to right myself. It worked. My upper body shot forward to counter balance my wayward butt, just as the upright with the arm-rope tension dial, possibly weakened by time in the closet but more probably incorrectly set up by my incompetence, shot backward.

There was an (Old Testament) "awesome" explosion of light and sound as the dial hit me right between the eyes at 15 kph times the variable "x", with "x" being the sum of the kinetic force of my adrenaline-fueled upper body and the counter force of gravity.

This is probably a good time to mention that I am descended from unicorns -- on my mother's side. I'm not prettier or more lithe or more pure for my genetic link to myth. I'm all those things for other reasons -- having to do with clean living and a godlike moral sensibility cleaved from years of self-examination.

All I got from the unicorn DNA is a skittishness around really bad people and a vestigial horn. The skittishness forced me out of corporate America, possibly saving my life in the long run, and the other night, the unicorn nub might have saved my life in the short run.

When I picked myself up off the ground, my eyes burned from the blood flowing out of the half-inch gash on my nub. But my pupils dilated as nature intended and beyond the ringing in my ears and the dent to my pride, I seemed to sustain no cerebral damage. I'm going to have to break down and buy a bicycle helmet, though. For next time I decide not to leave my room.