The master of my destiny...

I belong to a gym in Oklahoma City... Oh what the hell! I'm a member at All American Fitness and Racquet Ball. The thing with the stairmasters is that when I joined the gym they had six of them. During a short hiatus of working out, one of them disappeared. Which as I'm sure you know leaves five. But in the last few months two of them have become broken. So if you're keeping track, that leaves three. Three stairmasters for the entire membership of the gym to share. This means that on any given day, when I pull into good ol' All American at about 5:30pm, I can expect all three of the machines to be occupied.

Not to mention that there is a 20 minute limit for occupying one of the surviving machines. I've tried not to violate this rule out of common courtesy. I know that this is not the case with many of the individuals who share my desire for some sweat time on the coveted steppers. I've witnessed one woman in particular who will set the stair master to manual and go on it until it suits her fancy to dismount from it.

Anyway, this has had me thinking about how I can accommodate my training program's hill climbing requirements while living in "Flatland" Oklahoma. I considered purchasing a used stepper to stick out in the garage so I can go on it without concern. Only, used steppers are about as prevalent as dodo birds. I looked into buying a new one, only they cost about as much as my trip up Denali will. Forty two hundred at a local retailer.

But I think I may have found an alternative. I took my car to have the oil changed this weekend and decided to go get breakfast while it was being serviced. This meant I would go past a local mall. I decided to see if the doors were open at that early hour, knowing that many such establishments allow the nation's grandparents to enter and become Mall Walkers. The doors were open as expected and, as I passed through the mall, I noticed that the escalators were on. I was halfway out of the mall when I realized I could hop on the down escalator facing up and do a stair-masterish workout without a line or a 20 minute time limit. Provided Mall Security doesn't run me off.