The Treadmillers

This may surprise you but I'm a gifted runner.  Yep, looking at me now you'd be shocked but when I was tested for running in grade 3, I tested gifted.  Well, my Mom says I was gifted at running.  I missed the standard for admittance by a few seconds so I am actually a precocious runner but that doesn't matter. What matters is, I was identified as a gifted runner and got to join the Treadmillers.

I had to switch schools to join.  We were known as Treadmillers because the special room we had at the school was filled with treadmills.  We had a special teacher.  They let us know that they were gifted teachers for gifted Treadmillers.

Our teachers really liked the Treadmillers.  And what wasn’t to like, I mean, we treadmilled without being asked.  They didn’t have to deal with all those other kids who just ran hither and yon, all willy nilly like. They liked the fact there wasn’t a lot of us.  What was even better was that we looked like our teachers and a lot of my fellow Treadmillers grew up in teacher families so it was like we were just one big family.

Ya, that's it, the Treadmillers were like a family.   We sometimes hung out with the other kids at recess and sometimes we even ran against them in the schoolyard and in the later grades, some of those kids beat us but they weren't Treadmillers.   They ran outside and they had an advantage there.

When I went to high school what was really nice was they didn't make us run against anybody.  The school figured the test in grade three was good enough so we were able to keep all the Treadmillers together for four years. We even got special Treadmiller field trips that we didn't have to pay for. You know, when I look back on those days, I can really only remember the Treadmillers.

Those were good times.  The more we treadmilled, the more credit we got.  Everyone was happy and thought it was a good idea for us to treadmill more.  We got twice as much treadmilling as the other kids and my Mom bought me a special treadmill at home so I could be the best of all of the Treadmillers. Some of the Treadmillers started to get rashes.  I was OK though.  The facial ticks went away every summer.

So finally, the big day of graduation came and I sat with all the other Treadmillers.  There were eleven us. We started with forty.  I was so proud. Do you know that we won all the big awards that night?  Now it's true that some of the other kids ran faster times but we Treadmillers had our times reduced by 5% for all of our hard work and dedication.

I found out years later that we weren't the only ones.  Did you know there were others?  Some places actually built schools for Treadmillers.  To this day parents will line up to get into a prestigious Treadmill Academy. And the idea has really caught on.  There are even schools for Abacusers and Paintbrushers and Orchestrators and Basketballers and Dramatizers. Those lucky kids.

My running never really was the same after the Treadmillers.  The other kids made track teams and some Treadmillers did pretty well but I never quite measured up.  I don't run anymore.

But you know I am a gifted runner right?