Cross Training Lamentations

One of the most frustrating things to work into my running routine is cross training. Although it is important for a couple of reasons, I'll be honest, sometimes (like today) I'd rather take my chances running and developing an injury (knock on wood). Okay, maybe not the injury part, but I'd rather run just a mile than spending half an hour on that aweful spinning bike. As if regular biking wasn't monotonous enough, someone had the great idea to actually take the fun part out of it (going fast) by putting pedals on a steel frame, attatching handles and calling it a stationary bike. Sure, the spinning carbon-fiber plate that simulates momentum was a nice touch, and it gives spinning bikes a slight edge over regular excercise bikes, but I'll be honest, the interest the little spinning disc inspired lasted about 3 minutes. For the remaining 27 minutes, I tries just about everything to make the time go faster, and my percieved effort go down. I tried blasting intense, moving music through my earphones, but that didn't seem to get me anywhere. I tried to disassociate with the situation, but I found that to be equally unhelpful. The horrible truth was that I was literally spinning my wheel, going nowhere, and hating the whole thing.
Now, I would never submit myself to this punishment if I didn't feel it was good for me. While I didn't enjoy it, my legs were working in a slightly different way than they do running, strengthening a few more muscles. Not to mention it was a nice break from the beating my calves have been taking recently from minimalistic running, which was the main reason I chose to cross train today. I find that while it is about as boring as listening to classical piano music for hours, working on the lower end of my aerobic rate allows blood to flush out the lactic acid and repair the micro tears in the muscle fibers of my sore calves. While that sounds beneficial enough, the actual act of cross training is absolutely abysmal. I love running. I hate sitting around. Logically, cross training should be somewhere in between a day of and a running day. But it totally isn't. No, cross training has a very special place in my heart. It's on a different plane... the same plane that sprint workouts and wieght lifting are on. The plane of things that are good for me but are really (simply put) not fun whatsoever. I mean, at least on days off I can at least feel good about doing something that is good for me. With cross training, there is no rush, no endorphines. Sure I sweat, but it's a different kind of sweat. And sweat that seems to toy with me; as if to insesantly remind me that I am not running. On days off, I can control this realization. I can go do some wood working, start a new book, distract myself from my non-running reality. But cross training is so tantalizing because with every motion, it feels I am reminded that I'm not running... I'm doing something else. I enjoyed cross training over the summer when I got burnt out on running. But in a time when I am more in to running than I've ever been, cross training just feels annoying.
But I must stay positive, even in obnoxious adversity. Maybe a day of indoor cycling is just what my calves needed to expedite recovery so I can put in the big miles. Maybe cross training is just the prescription my running needs to improve... if nothing else, and I mean if there was truly no other benefit, cross training days like today make me apreciate all of my runs... even the bad ones.