I have been injured for a while now – a stupid injury to my Achilles tendon (about which perhaps more on another occasion) meant that I swim and cycle but not run at all, let alone pound the city pavements. Eventually I got the green light from my physio to start doing some low-impact aerobic exercise that was as close as possible to running, but without the high impact that running can cause. What actually was that exercise? The elliptical cross-trainer in the gym. My heart sank.
However, six weeks later, I can honestly say that I have formed a new relationship with the cross-trainer – one that goes far beyond our previous interaction. I fully accept that running in the gym can be boring; personally I have always found it hard to do more than 30 minutes on any gym machine, even when I would happily(ish) run outside for up to two hours. Why the change of heart? I think that it’s a combination of things, but the first was a decision to ‘run’ on the cross-trainer without holding onto the arms. I figured that doing that would make it as close to running as I could get, I also hoped it would be good for my (long hidden, largely forgotten) stomach muscles.
What I hadn’t really anticipated was that it would also require me to spend more concentration on keeping on the machine, which meant that I spent less time darting glances at the gym clock to see how much time was left. But ultimately the cross-trainer has worked for me because I can feel that it’s working for my body. Even now that I am able to start incorporating running back into my training, I am going to keep a space for the cross-trainer, which has won me over. It’s a brilliant way to turn your legs over without causing even a fraction of the impact to your ankles, knees and thighs that a run can potentially do.
The other things which have helped me through the otherwise interminable gym hours (and scientists have proven that time runs more slowly once you get on an aerobic machine in the gym): podcasts, a heartrate monitor, a completely new library of tunes on my ipod. But more about those another time.
