Necessary evils

Over the past week I made the decision to up my training a notch (or two) and put all of these hard miles towards a concrete goal: I'm planning on running my eighth marathon this May.

On Monday I kicked off Week One of training with a solid six miles in the Park. My pace was good, my heart rate better than expected, and I finished feeling strong and refreshed. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Tuesday's workout, which called for 43 minutes and 44 seconds of aerobic cross-training (at an average heart rate of 150). Indeed, Tuesday morning's trip to the gym was a bit of a debacle.

To be sure, I despise cross-training (unless it's cycling, which is unfortunately not possible this time of year), and it's definitely the worst part about a marathon training plan: the elliptical trainer may be the dullest exercise machine ever invented; the stationary bikes in the gym are not positioned at all like real road bikes; swimming takes too long when you count the extra 45 minutes it requires to get to and from the pool. I've yet to try that seated thing that works only my arms, but someday if I suffer a serious leg injury I may have to consider giving it a go.

On Tuesday I picked the lesser of all evils and settled in on the elliptical (with upper body levers) for 44 mind-numbing minutes. To keep myself semi-distracted, I plugged my headset into the Today Show, which happened to be showing a story about a golden retriever named Angel who saved his 11 year-old master from a cougar attack in British Columbia. Watching this adorable puppy with all of his wounds being lifted on to the operating table and hearing how he almost gave his life to protect the little boy was a lot for me to handle while my legs whirled round and round. Suddenly, without warning, I felt an enormous lump in my throat, and then I was shedding tears on the elliptical machine in the middle of the JCC gym.

Fortunately, my allotted 44 minutes were almost over, so I was able to dab my eyes and get off the machine soon after my emotional meltdown. I then proceeded to do 2x20 lunges around the gym -- a workout I haven't done since last year's marathon training. It was somewhere around the third and fourth reps of the second set that I appear to have pulled all of the major muscle groups in both legs, and I figured this was the signal to get out of gym altogether. As a result of my pulled muscles, yesterday morning's six mile tempo was anything was pleasant.

All of this leads me to question whether exercise really does reduce stress like common theory would suggest. On further consideration, though, I don't think I've ever cried while doing a loop in Central Park (although the wind does cause my eyes to tear incessantly), and I rarely pull muscles during regular runs. This morning I had the perfect four mile fartlek around the Central Park reservoir: a quick, satisfying workout in clear, cold weather. I can only conclude that it must be the indoor gym environment that stresses me out. (At the very least, I could be subconsciously stressing over the fact that I go to the gym so infrequently and pay so much for my membership that every single visit averages to about $50). As if I didn't have enough reasons to dislike cross-training.