I'm running too loud on the treadmill!?

Yesterday, after running 30 minutes on the 'mill at the '24 Hr' gym in Northgate, the man on the neighboring machine turns to me and says, "just for your information, this machine (pointing to the one he's on) is the quietest treadmill at this gym." Still catching my breathe from running intervals (1 minutes sprints w/ 1 minute jogs in between) for the past 10 minutes of my run I simply nodded and gave him the thumbs up.

As I further gathered by breathe, I realized his intentions: he thought I was recklessly stomping on the 'mill and in reaction was trying to politely ask me to cut it out. For the record, one of two things happens with 'mills at the gym: 1) they all make 'noise' regardless of which one you choose 2) sprinting on 'mills requires steps with considerable more force.

I thought some more. Why would this bug him? This dude was just jogging/walking (jowalking) on his machine (making minimal noise) and maybe he felt I should make similar noise regardless of my pace? and/or was he just jealous that I was going 3X as fast as his bar-holding 3 mph gimpy pace? does he know what intervals are and what they require? I dunno...I wanted to tell him to sprint on HIS 'mill and see if he can avoid making noise.

This whole thing kinda irked me. Grr...I'd rather not have figuratively treaded softly in my response back to him...however, I may see this douche again at the gym.