Gazelle in Exile

---Wednesday, October 8th---

Things aren't going smoothly.

I’m way down in it and I’m struggling big time. Leg turnover is sloppy, my breathing overwrought. I’m clunky, cranky, I’m peering over the edge. Dig Deep! Gut it out! This is virtually intolerable. No sports gels, no water stops, this is crazy. I have found my limit. I’m in a dark place right now. Just keep it together. Stay in the game. I start counting down from 100. Get the pain out of your head. I really don’t know if I can make it. But I’m so close! Focus, Robert. Push on through. Crank. It. Out.

And then, finally, thank the gods, it ends. Finis. I don’t have to endure one more second. I look at my watch.

40 minutes.

I step off the elliptical trainer.

Oh my god. OH MY GOD. I can’t think of anything more unpleasant, more sanity-testing and more ridiculous than 40 minutes on a cardio machine. Bring on the 15-45-90 leg lifts! Mile Repeats! Wilke, I love you! But, by all that is good in this world, please spare me the cardio machine. Why so difficult? Because you are not moving. You are going through the motions, but you are not in motion. You are gunning the engine, yet you are in park. All of the work, none of the fun. Mt. Bonnell is replaced by a series of bars on the monitor that you stare at. Ooh, here comes the big bar, watch out! Oh no, will I make it over the big bar?! I don’t know! Rather than a view of the lake or trees or the back of a faster runner, you get a tv without sound that, in my gym, is usually turned to Rachael Ray or a show about the world’s toughest prisons. What? Earl spent 36 hours in “The Box” before overpowering his guard and starting a small gang fight? Why, that’s fantastic. I’m so glad there’s video of it.

I want to be free, to run like the wind! And yet my wings are clipped. My calf strain is the issue—relatively minor and fixable, but the timing is terrible. Over the last week and a half I have hobbled onto the trail three times with unacceptable results: 1 mile, 4 miles, 8 miles, each followed by a morale-sapping walk back to my Subaru. I missed the last 20 miler for the New Yorkers and I’m putting all my eggs in a successful solo attempt three weeks out. The folks at SPI, Pieter, Troy, Dr. Spears, Lori the physician’s assistant, Rebecca at the front desk, and the building’s janitor all implored me not to run until I was completely over the strain. Not only am I glum about losing my conditioning, but it’s like I’ve been quarantined, out of the Gazelles loop, unable to run with my buddies. I want Coach to throw a medicine ball at me. I miss that.

I walk over to the stationary bike and try to get in another twenty minutes of extreme annoyance. I start peddling and the lights on the monitor go on. Why does it want my age and weight?? Just start, let’s get this over with. That’s it, ENOUGH, I’m about to lose it! I jump off and kick the stupid hell device. Oww, MY CALF!!! That was retarded.

I find myself completely bereft of satisfying workout options. Sullen, self-pitying, I get back on the bike, but I just sit there watching Rachael Ray.

Pause.

Another pause.

Hey.

Those “hot-dog-a-bobs” look pretty good.