It’s hard for a body-conscious American to visit Belgium — a country that subsists primarily on waffles, french fries, chocolate, and beer — and not feel the need to periodically torch a slew of calories. Luckily for me, we cashed in some serious loyalty points to stay at the Hilton Brussels City, which caters to the international business traveler. When we checked in, the young woman at the front desk greeted us in English, not French (and certainly not Flemish). All of the newspapers were in English, and the television carried more English channels than local channels. And, the hotel boasted one of the nicest hotel gyms I’ve ever seen. It was small, but featured state-of-the-art equipment and machines in a well-ventilated, high-ceiled room with a big-screen television. It was about as European as a SUV at an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet whining about taxes and liberals.
So our second evening in Brussels, after a day spent roaming art museums, sampling chocolates, and discovering the joys of ham and cheese tartines, I decided to hit the hotel gym as Mr. P, maddeningly, worked remotely (our lunch was interrupted when he received an urgent phone call from his boss about some fatal error or something). The gym was empty when I arrived — just like any given hotel gym in America, home sweet home.
I got on a treadmill, entered my age and weight, and started at a nice leisurely jogging pace of 5.0. Strangely, the belt wasn’t moving with sufficient speed that I could break into a run, so I upped the speed higher, going to 6.3. I was cruising and so proud of myself. Yes, I had been largely sedentary for the past three days, and in fact I hadn’t run in more than a week, so it made sense my muscles felt fresh. Yet… I wasn’t sweating. My breath was so stable that I could have carried on a conversation about recurring themes in Rilke’s lyrical prose.
And so it continued, me so comfortable that I pushed the pace to 6.6 — a 9 minute mile, a pace that I rarely attain in non-race situations. Around minute 30, when I had started mile 3 with nary a hint or perspiration, I began to wonder if something was wrong with the treadmill. Maybe the belt ran slow? The calorie counter on the treadmill’s display informed me that I had burned 450 calories. I was already converting Belgian chocolates to calories in my head…
When it dawned on me that I was, in fact, in Belgium. Where they used the metric system.
My 6.6 pace wasn’t mph, but kilometers per hour. I had no mental reference point for what that meant, except a 5k was 3 miles, so 3k was less than 2 miles in 30 minutes, which meant that I probably didn’t need to be running. A brisk walk would suffice.
And the incredibly generous calorie count? I had entered a weight of 140, which when converted to kilograms is about 300 pounds. No wonder the treadmill assumed my metabolism was doing a biological version of the Kuwaiti oil fires.
Half-dejected, half-amused, I stopped the treadmill. What am I doing? I’m on vacation in Brussels, and I’m exercising in the metric system.
