Gazelle newbie: Week one

So I make it through my first two Gazelle sessions without serious injury or embarrassment. Emphasis on ‘serious.’ In the first one, Gilbert told me to run a 5-mile fartlek and I was so proud of the fact that I broke from the group about a third of the way through and fartlek’d on my own. I show up at RunTex acting all cool, like, “Hey Gilbert, what do you think of that? Can I go straight to the pace run now or what?” Gilbert instructs me to do strides at Auditorium Shores with the faster runners who ran seven. Ooh, ouch. In my face.

Saturday morning marked not only my first long run with the Gazelles, but the first time I have ever been awake at 5:45am on a Saturday. Clearly I do not understand the concept of warming up, as I start out ahead of the entire group for about two miles. The faster ones creep up on me and before I know it I’m hanging out in the second or third group. I start chatting with Margaret, who’s also running New York, and preoccupied with our conversation, we fall in with the wrong crowd—runners of questionable character and judgment whose names I won’t reveal here. Okay, Fletcher and Jorge. I thought they said they were taking the Scenic route—as in Scenic Drive-- but what they meant was the “scenic” route up to 45th and east, then north through UT campus and back to RunTex. As we venture forth on the revised course, Gilbert drives by in his Tacoma and yells, “Robert, turn back. Do not run with them.” Thanks, Gilbert, that was embarrassing. What is the big deal? Oh, Fletcher runs like a 2:45 marathon. And uh, I don’t. Oops! My 10-mile run ends up being about thirteen, and Margaret and I pull up to Auditorium Shores a few minutes behind the crazy fast people.