Running with the Gazelles

I’m sure most of us have been in this situation. Going to a group run, knowing that most of your running buddies cannot make it, but you think, “well I’ll go anyways, I’m sure there will be someone there who is around my pace.” When you get there, all that have shown up are gazelles.

Dammit

Now for this purpose about, a gazelle is someone who is significantly after than you. I may be a gazelle to someone, and there are many people who I call gazelles. Hallet likes to call them jackrabbits, but I like to give them a term that make them sound more majestic.

 Now running with a gazelle is not always a bad thing, but there are two factors that must be considered first.

11.       You must be willing to run with them

22.      They must be willing to run with you.

For the majority of the time, I find that gazelles usually welcome your company and do not want you to be alone. They’ll usually run at your pace but at the very least, they’ll wait for you a certain points to make sure you are ok and don’t get lost. 

A lot of people are afraid to run with gazelles because they are worried about slowing them down, or they’ll get lost or they just find them intimating. But gazelles are very friendly creatures that want you to do well with running as much as you do. Sometimes the gazelles will decide that they want to run with you regardless of you having pace buddies, but you should still welcome the gazelle into the herd.

I have ran with the gazelles several times and it has always been a great experience. I always leave the run learning something new. Some have helped me with my breathing, some with my posture and technique. Others have just simply pushed me to my limits, which made me realize how much I could actually do.

So I ask of you, if you are planning to skip a group run just because your friends cannot make it, please go anyways.  It could result into two things. Either you run with a gazelle and become a better runner from it, or you become somebody else’s gazelle and you make someone a better runner. Either way you look at it is a win.