On the treadmill.  Ipod filling my head with music.  Reading the kindle.  Overhead a basketball game is on TV.  The water from Puget Sound alternates between looking stormy and shimmery as the weather tries to make up its mind.

Am in Zen like happy zoned out place.  Have been going for about half an hour.  On this chilly Sunday afternoon.

A man gets on the treadmill to the right.  That's fine.  The gym is large and the equipment is nicely spaced apart.

Am blissfully travelling nowhere (which is the point), when the man yells out: Come on!  Interrupting my flow.   Jeez, that basketball game must be a good one.

Come on!  He shouts again.  Wow.  Obviously his team is losing. COME. ON!  I look away from the kindle up at the screen. It's a Unisom commercial.  As in the sleep aid.

This is when I realize, am running next to a dreaded treadmill screamer.

At my former gym on the plateau, this came in the form of a man who sync'd his stride with a loud percussive whistling noise.  I think through his teeth.    He was so loud all of the rest of us would do whatever we could to try to be on the other side from wherever he was.  To no avail.  It pierced us.

This all goes through my mind as the man to the right yells.  Suppose I can get off and move over.  But was here first.

COME! ON!!!  He yells.

I sneak a peak.  He's been going for about ten minutes.  Hopefully he's only running a quick mile or two.  But it is not meant to be.

For the next twenty minutes, he huffs.  He puffs.  He groans and moans.  And most seriously - he berates himself.   Oblivious to the rest of us.

I've heard of motivational sports psychology.  But This.  This I haven't heard of before.

He is his own personal trainer.  Chanting COME ON.  Come OOOON.  COME on.  Punctuated with all sorts of grunting noises.  At one point (and I swear am not exaggerating) he is yelling Come On to each beat of his feet.

It is so awful that I start giggling.  Which causes me to miss a stride and almost tumble off the machine.

Turn up the ipod, but it is no use.

This is where the mind decides to make a game out of it.  Okay.  He's trying to outlast me.  Trying to get me to give up first.  This of course  results in me running a mile longer than originally intended.  There's no way am giving up no matter how loud he yells.  And it does get louder.  A giant crescendo as he pushes himself to the limit.

Then finally, yay.  I win.  He has to get off the treadmill while I still carry on.  Quietly.

Not that he notices.