Treadmills are boring

Treadmills are boring. They are efficient, they are useful when the temperature dips to -20C, but they are boring as hell.

Knowing this in advance for my treadmill setup I added some entertainment capabilities. The treadmill itself has a set of speakers built into it so I can hook up the iPhone and listen to music or audiobooks or internet radio. The treadmill itself faces a bookshelf. Yes, a bookshelf. On the top of the bookshelf there is a small LED television, an Apple TV and a fan.

Fan? To keep me cool when walking. I generate a lot of heat when walking and the fan is necessary to cool me down.

LED Television? For visual stimulus when on the treadmill.

Apple TV? To connect to everything I need and surprisingly there is a lot to connect to. For example:

• Music. The Apple TV connects to my iTunes and can stream everything I have in my music collection.
• Movies. When I buy movies these days I try to make sure that there is a digital copy that I can load into iTunes. This doesn't mean that I need to keep the copy on my local machine - iTunes can stream it from their library - but it does mean that I have an even wider selection of things to watch.
• Netflix. There is a lot of stuff on Netflix. For example, over the past few weeks I was watching The Walking Dead. Now I have switched to Doctor Who (the 2005 reboot). With seven seasons to watch this will keep me busy for a while. After that I have Supernatural on tap. By the time all of that is done there will be at least one or two more series I need to watch and then I will need to catch up on all of the series that I started watching this way.
• Audiobooks. I keep complaining that I don't have time to read, but I do have time to listen.

There is a lot of stuff out there to watch/listen to and there is a lot of winter still left. Since I am trying to do two sessions a day (one when I wake up and one at lunch) I try to watch things in the morning, when I am close to the TV, and listen to audiobooks at lunch when I am walking.

 

Yeah, treadmills are boring and this is how I am keeping my sanity.