Running in Low-Gravity

It certainly wasn’t worth all the pain and expense of my surgery, and therapy, but one cool thing happened the other day because of my knee injury, and that was getting to run on a zero gravity treadmill.

The space of the treadmill is pressurized, and the person who’s getting ready to run slips on a pair of super-tight shorts that are zipped into place at the top of the pressurized chamber.  The first experience, as you’re pulling those things on, is sort of “huh,” unless you’re used to wearing a diver suit or fighting evildoers in spandex. But once you’re actually running the treadmill it’s pretty enjoyable. My own weight was set to 50% Earth normal, which is less than I would weigh on Mars. And then I took a jog. For the first little bit I didn’t even notice the pain in my knee, which makes sense, because the whole object of the zero gravity treadmill is to get damaged joints back up to speed gently. But because I’m a long time science fiction and fantasy nerd I was thinking the entire time about jogging on another planet, or wondering if this is how John Carter felt when he ran, and other nonsense.