Is that guy having a seizure?

When not falling down flights of stairs or eating my third seven layer burrito my favorite activity is running.
As far as I can tell there are two reasons for this.

One: The chemical reaction that happens when the body works to fatigue and makes me feel simultaneously happy, confident and superior.

Two: I get to listen to music un-interupted for an hour or more.

I listen to music all the time throughout my day, however there is something about keeping your body totally engaged in one activity to make the music no longer a background stimulus...but a full on internal experience.

There is a hidden cost.
When rocking out while running I have been known to turn into either Jimmy Page or the Pips.

Today I ran for seventy minutes. In that time I had to stop myself no less than ten times from playing air-guitar.

Lets paint a picture. You are in a crowded gym. Perhaps you are one of the fifty freakishly fit people taking the Step class in the little aerobics center that abuts the track.
As you are being yelled at by little tiny be-spandexed drill sergeant with a predilection for phrases like 'come on ladies, get those butts in the air', 'Woo!' and 'you guys look awesome, just 10 more' then you start seeing out of the corner of your eye a 6'3" 230 pound red faced guy in a sleevless shirt and an iPod strapped to his arm in such a way as to create a second set of love handles above and below the strap He appears to be having some kind of fit.

You think to yourself (as you get that butt up a little higher) 'gee I hope he's OK' and put the incident out of your mind for about a minute until he appears again, flush faced, sweat drenched and now you are quite sure doing some sort of interpretive dance.

All I have to say, my dear Step-Aerobicizer is that I was not having a fit, I was playing lead guitar, and I was kicking ass. That is of course until I realized I was doing it. This is a hard feeling to describe. It is a feeling like you have when you realize that not only is your fly open but you have roughly 17 ounces of coffee down your shirt and spinach in your teeth. So I stop and look both right and left and think 'whoo, I got away with that one'.

But that is not the worst of it.

Back to our little picture.
You've just been told you have 8 more reps of something that involves your head to be below your feet while holding a flexible cable in your left hand that it attached to your right heel and holding an eight pound hand weight in the other hand when you hear what can only be 'one of the special people' coming around on your left. You think, 'how brave of him to work out in public' but then you see him.

It is just the enormous spazzy guy, but this time he appears to be muttering to himself.
He must be in great pain. After all it can't be easy for a guy his size to be running around the track for so long.
You put him out of your mind and go back to 'blasting those abs'

But the next time around he sounds as though he is at his own Bar Mitzvah chanting his way into manhood.

But no,actually, I am singing back up vocals, and kicking ass once again.

Often when I hear myself and notice that I must look something like Dustin Hoffman in rain man crossed with Philip Seymour Hoffman in...anything I begin to cough as though to say...whoo...glad I passed that throat obstruction.

Can I be stopped? Nope. And truth be told I don't mind too much because I can all but guarantee that I am in somebody's gym identity short hand book.

I think we all have this. A phrase for a person whose name you don't know (and probably don't want to know). For example, I saw the following three people at the Gym this morning.

Creepy grim reaper guy (because of his many many tattoos)

Scarily fit girl (who is literally always there)

Standy McTalksalot (the hugely overweight guy who stands in the free-weight area and talks while drinking a protein shake. I have never seen him lift anything but that bottle)

So I hope that somebody goes home and says "oh, honey you have to hear what Seizure-Man was doing today".