Here’s an idea…

As an 80’s child, I had spent hours of my time, (not to mention loads of my pocket money) on arcade games. You know the ones where there would be this huge tall black box you would put in a coin, (in my case it was a Dirham), and a character from a then popular cartoon that would come on screen. From there you would go proceed to save the world from aliens, the Kingpin or a dark evil overlord suffering from a severe bout of constipation. I would do that for the next 20 minutes or so and eventually when the bad-guy would get better of me (more likely I would be out of cash) I would sulkly waddle out of the arcade.

Now, once in a while, when I would be in the zone, I’d just take control of the joystick and would really whip Captain America, Robocop or Pacman to do some serious butt-kicking and actually play on and and on. And then finally after 30 to 40 minutes of play, the Big Bad Boss would come-on. Now those who’ve acutally played on these arcade games, knows that winning the game is like anything else you take on life. It takes a whole lot of skill, patience and finally…finally with a bit of luck I get to crouch and with a swoop I rise to my feet and deliver the killing winning blow under the jaw of the Big Bad Boss while yelling, “Astala Vista, Baby!” The screen flickers for a moment and then here’s the really grand prize, I get to scribe 3 initials into Hall of Fame of that game. And then I glow in the respect of the other nerdy guys who have been peering over my shoulder all this while.

This was some twenty years ago and as difficult as it maybe some to believe, I’ve actually grown out of the arcade games and now find myself spending a similar amount of time running on Treadmills. Once in a while, when I’m once again in the zone, my legs would simply fly over the running belt, I’m generating gallons of sweat but it doesn’t bother me and I can go on and on. But at the end of a glorious run, although it feels simply great, that’s where it would end. Now here’s the idea, it would be so much better, after my exceptionally good run, if I get to enter my initials on to a Hall of Fame for having run say a 5K in 25 min. You could do that with any of these Cardio machines, be it a Stationary Bike or an Elliptical Trainer. Now that would motivate others to top that score hence use the treadmill more, which would push me to do even better next time. Neat idea, huh?

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