Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Runners are gassy

I've had my annoying share of gym faux pas committed to me during treadmill days: sweat flung on me and intensive BO emanating from my neighbor. But last night's incident, while still gross, was inevitable. After taking a week of break after the SJ Half Marathon, I dragged my butt back to the gym to start over from the basics. The plan was to run an easy 5K to stretch my legs and reawaken my stubborn drive to succeed in endurance sports. So naturally, the day that I decided to jump back on the bandwagon was the day that the gym became ridiculously packed.

After waiting for 15 minutes, I finally finagled a free treadmill by staring the last runner down. And excited with my acquisition, I hopped on without noting what kind of treadmill neighbor I had. However, his presence soon waved it's ugly head at me during my second mile, when he started passing gas. I have no idea what that man had for dinner, but it was darn potent. Now, I'm not going to get mad at the guy because sometimes that isn't something you can control. But, usually I'll only have to endure the torture for just a minute or two. I could smell this guy's gas for half a mile of running! Thankfully, he was finished with his run when I was at mile 2.5. Unfortunately, that's when the man on the other side of me started with his gaseous performance until I finished my run.

I must say that despite feeling like I was running through a sewer plant, that was one of the best runs I've had in a while. In fact, I think I mangaged to hit a "runner's high" moment for myself, because I felt like my legs could go on forever and I physically felt like I was floating. I love it when this happens, especially because it's rather rare for me. Yippie! Although, I have absolutely no suggestions on how to overcome the gassy neighbor obstacle. If there aren't any other free treadmills, I don't know what to do. But, I'm open to suggestions.

2 comments:

Mayumi said...

maybe your run was so good because your legs were trying to outrun your neighbors. haha.

Unknown said...

You could maybe make your point silently by donning an oxygen mask and waving around a bottle of Glade every time someone on a nearby treadmill rips one.

You are a brave, brave soul.