Day 4: Ode to the Elliptical

I hate this damn machine.

It mimics movement.

Real movement.

You kinda feel like your running but you're not. It’s faking you out. All the while you are looking out a window at the cold, slightly off-color outdoors and thinking, ‘I should have gone for a run.’ It’s almost torture having to give myself little breaks and let the bones become stronger and heal better. I recognize the benefits in healing one’s limbs, but damn is it boring. Most distance runners feel this way, I have found. Most of them live for running; they are as crazy as me.

Today I queued up some punk music from my high school days and beat the hell out of the elliptical cross trainer. That thing didn’t know what it had coming to it when I stepped up. It probably thought (if it could think), ‘Aw, sweet little girl is gonna do a little workout.’ I hate it when people or inanimate objects think of me as sweet. Sweet makes me want to punch you (or in this case the elliptical machine) in the face. It’s ridiculous to approach fitness this way, but it passes the time and is thoroughly amusing. Twenty-five minutes later I had knocked out 3.2 miles at an incline of 9-11/15 and an alternating resistance of 9-12/20. Essentially I was testing my ability to run. Up. Ultra marathons tend to be on trails and they tend to cover significant hills. One of the most important things you can do during training is prepare your quads and hamstrings for the beating they will surely receive on race day.

Everything I have read about ultra marathoning, and believe me it’s been a lot, says that half of the race is physical and the rest is mental. I know for a fact I can handle the mental part. Being strong mentally has never been an issue for me. My grandmother and father are probably the most stubborn people in the world, but I say that with love and it’s a huge benefit for me. So I got the second half covered, it’s just making sure I am prepared to handle the first half. While I have always been good at putting my nose to the grind and getting something done when I need to, training for a race is different. When you have to put your body on a daily basis through immense pressure, it takes a lot out of you. I found at crucial moments of training I tend to fracture/pull/break/tear something or get dreadfully sick. Yesterday I started to put together the longest training plan ever for this 50 miler. My goal here is to be strong and train myself to handle an immense amount of mileage. My goal is to run the JFK 50 miler. But I also have another goal. I want to run Western States. If you didn’t think I was nuts before now, I am sure this point I have cemented it in your mind. Western States Endurance Run is a 100 mile race in California. You traverse several different types of climates and massively different terrain. Usually around half of all starters finish. It’s probably one of the harder ultras out there. I won’t say “hardest ultra” because I’ve heard of the Barkley and yeah. Anyway that’s the long long term goal.

So for now I am putting in my time, like a jail bird, on the machines, alternating as best I can with running until I can give my full (or at least most) of my attention back to running, training, and preparing.