I walk into the office building behind RunTex on Riverside to meet with Gilbert Tuhabonye. I’m thinking about taking his fall marathon training class since I’ll be running New York this November. Loaded with plenty of questions and prepared not to commit to anything— my natural approach to all things—I step cautiously into a small conference room where I find Gilbert on his phone looking relaxed in sporty après-running attire. He probably just ran 20 miles.
I introduce myself. “Hi, I’m-“
Gilbert looks up and beams with recognition. “Yes, Robert! I remember you. I helped you with some shoes in the store. You have incredibly narrow feet! You tried on almost every shoe we had. You finally settled on the Mizuno LTW DS XT 3 Wavesomethingorother. 11 1/2. B .”
Why yes. Yes, all of that is true. He did help me that one time at RunTex, I do have embarrassingly narrow feet, and he did put me in those shoes. It was my only previous encounter with Gilbert. And it occurred five years ago.
I was a bit stunned by Gilbert’s remarkable memory.
We begin to discuss his program, my intention to run New York and what my goals could or should be. As I’m detailing my long and tedious history as a do-it-yourself marathoner, Gilbert adds up some numbers and interrupts, “I’ve seen you run, man. You are strong. I think you can BQ.”
“What do you mean, when have you seen me run?”
"I've seen you."
"No way. I'm ultra low profile on the trail. I'm stealthy."
“You run with your left arm out like this.”
He imitates what looks like a dolphin trained to wave at the crowd with his fin at Seaworld.
Oh my god. I do run like that. I DO RUN LIKE THAT. First the shoes and now this. Is he all seeing? Is he following me around or something? What else does Gilbert know about me?!
We discuss my 10-marathon history further, detailing the highs and lows— bonking without fail at mile 22, running five marathons on zilcho sleep, puking three times in Houston (and once in the marathon. ha ha), sliding on ice in the Austin Freezescale, the blood, the sweat, the port-a-pottie melee. Good times.
Gilbert laughed as if he’d heard all this before, “Man, we are going to have fun.”
He then recounts success stories that even I, a relative cynic, find truly inspirational. From 4:04 to 2:57 in three marathons? Are you kidding me? Gazelles dropping 65 pounds? Completing marathons after beating cancer? He talks of the variety of runs we’d be doing, stuff I’ve never done and never heard of, the balance of gym work and recovery. He says all this, not as a coach lecturing his player, but as a guy who’s going to be going through everything with you. And he’s totally excited about it. Gilbert’s affability—and his psychic powers—are winning me over.
We begin deliberations on meeting time and I hold strong that I want to run at the 7:30am Mon/Wed slot.
“No, man, that won’t work,” he tells me. “You are too fast.” (Although apparently I run like Shamu.) “You won’t have anyone to pace with. You need to be here at 5:45.”
“Listen, Gilbert, I wear many hats. One is I’m an actor, which means my schedule is all irregular. I often don’t get home til midnight.”
Gilbert contemplates. “I have a suggestion. When you’re through running, how about you go home and take a nap?”
This never occurred to me. Such an amazingly sensible response. Of course I could do that. Why not?
I sat in silence.
I’m receiving a drubbing from Gilbert in this debate.
Now he has me leaning heavily toward the full-on “running-at-5:45am-every-Monday,- Wednesday-and-Saturday-until-November-God-help-me” plan. But before I sign my name to this ridiculousness, I ask him if he really thinks I can BQ.
“Do you think you can BQ?” he asks cryptically.
Hesitation. “Yes. Yes I can.”
He writes down the qualifying time in question, ‘3:15,’ in his notebook.
“Okay, that will be your goal. And this,” as he writes ‘3:00’ below it, “This will be my goal.”
Whoa. Did you just write that?! Oh no you didn’t! I felt like a little schoolkid. 3:00?? Gilbert, don’t tease me! That is too cool to even contemplate. Now I totally wanted to do it, not just to reach my BQ goal, but to help Gilbert meet his goal of me meeting my goal!
I committed to it all and as I walked out I told Gilbert I’d see him on Wednesday at 5:45 with my travel coffee mug in hand, prepared to run like the wind. Funny, that wasn’t my plan when I entered the room.
