How to defeat treadmill-hogs

Let’s start with setting the scene and a disclaimer: what you’re about to read is based on real life, recent events.

It’s just after 7am and you’re up for a run. You draw back the curtains and the sun is already high over Tokyo. Below, schoolgirls with little bowler hats and massive leather backpacks are walking in small groups and salarymen and mothers on bikes are weaving between them. Although the streets of Roppongi look inviting, you want to listen to some music and as running with music on busy streets is a bad combination you opt for the gym. You pull on your Tabio running socks, Asics trainers, shorts and T-shirt and curse your BlackBerry because it seems their network has gone into meltdown.

In the hallway you smile at the staff dusting ledges and make your way downstairs. You quite like this gym as the smell reminds you of a ryokan with its coniferous scent and the lighting is flattering – low, warm and ideal for early morning workouts. As you pass the pool, you can see above you many arms pushing weights, legs pounding treadmills and more arms on cross-trainers. You climb the stairs and arrive in a gym that’s almost packed – clearly occupancy rates have bounced back in Tokyo as you haven’t seen it this busy for nearly a year. Good for the hotel but not great for you, as all the treadmills are occupied.

Or maybe not. At the far end, the last one seems to be free. As you shuffle past the other runners you note their particular running styles – the young dainty Chinese man is running with arms high like little flippers, the tall Aussie is pounding the poor machine too heavily and keeps checking on his mate who’s stretching on the mats, and Japanese colleagues are running in sync ,with their towels perfectly knotted around their necks, as only the Japanese seem able to manage.

At the last treadmill, the woman perched on the end is collecting her belongings. You do a half-circle while you prepare your heart monitor and turn on your iPod and then open up the circle as it’s taking longer than expected for her to gather her things. You glance at the pool, the clock, the stretching Aussie and back to the treadmill. The woman has now taken out her BlackBerry and is checking messages. Your eyes narrow and you focus on her for a few seconds. Perhaps she has to review something important that’s come in from her west coast office and needs to respond immediately – you give her another 30 seconds. You move towards the treadmill and tighten your shoelaces but she reads this as a hostile act and angles her shoulder, stiffening her posture and huddling around her mobile device. You peel away with raised eyebrows and decide to try the cross-trainer, a machine you’re not particularly fond of.

It’s at this moment that one of the gym attendants recognises a potentially explosive situation is brewing. She does a little run over to the woman and starts with a bow, then a smile, then a flash of her eyes and motions to the treadmill. She then involves her arms and her whole body in the signalling but the woman is still tapping away and seems irritated by this attention. The young Japanese attendant is clearly dying from this uncomfortable situation but she’s not about to give up and stands bowing and smiling, smiling and bowing. Through a tense smile you can imagine her saying: “Get your ass on the treadmill now you arrogant, silly cow and quit being so disrespectful.”

The stand-off carries on for a another minute or so until the woman gets up and starts rifling through her particularly large toiletry bag. What she’s looking for is unclear but she’s now been hogging the treadmill for over 10 minutes (you’ve timed it on your stop watch) and continues to clatter around in the case. At this point you’re so exasperated by her general rudeness and overall attitude that you start creating scenarios about how conduct like this should be dealt with in an early-morning public setting. You start coming up with various tactics and settle on two that would have the desired impact and set an example not only for the offending tread-militant but also for anyone else who might have leanings to such obnoxious behaviour.

Scenario one: you ask the attendant for a pen and paper and write a note that says: “Good Morning Tread-Militant. Newsflash! You might think you’re the only person in this hotel but you’re not. While you might get away with your behaviour elsewhere in daily life, your general disrespect for others is shameful and wholly inappropriate. Now please get off the machine, take your things and check out immediately as you’re being deported from Japan.” Then place it on the treadmill display.

Scenario two: you walk over, grab her by the ponytail and wrestle her on to the mat and then let the mild-mannered attendant go bananas with a wrestling routine not used since high school. The whole time you make sure someone is filming this as a warning to what happens when you’re inconsiderate of others. Any other suggestions?

Tyler Brûlé is editor-in-chief of Monocle magazine

tyler.brule@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/brule