Week 18 - Freakin' Out

Only 5 weeks left till D-Day as I write this. I hit the gym with a vengeance these last few days. Monday was supposed to be a short run, but I felt the shins tingling and cut it off after 5 minutes. Walked my sad sack butt to the club and put in about 1 1/2 hours of hard cardio work. What began as another epic shin failure turned into a victory for Team Keith. Weight is down to 173 lb, and I'm wearing size 32 waist shorts for the first time since 2004. At this point I'm going to call the marathon training a success even if I wind up in a mangled heap somewhere along the climb to hurricane-point (see image).

Legs are feeling good. Plan to do some running around the grass soccer fields here in Riverfront Park. Doing another long distance run before the marathon may not happen. Instead, I am conjuring up a plan to run some middle distances (6 milers or so) followed up immediately by lengthy cross training at the gym. This should keep my shins in top shape leading into the 26.2 mile course, help me shed a few more pounds, and get my cardiovascular system prepared to endure 4 hours of headwinds and hills.

-Mar 15: Ran to gym, 30 min biking, 20 min on rowing machine, 16 minutes of interval training on elliptical machine.

-Mar 16: 1 hr yoga during lunch. Jogged to gym after work, dumbell bench/flies, medicine ball crunches, sidebends, pullups, 30 min on bike, 16 min intervals on elliptical.

-Mar 17: Wussed out at lunch, ran to gym after work, 30 min biking, 20 min on rowing machine, 16 minutes of interval training on elliptical machine. Downed Irish-car-bombs, green beer, and way too much deep fried bar snacks in celebration.

-Mar 18: 1 hr yoga during lunch.

-Mar 19: Bosu dumbell curls and military press, medicine ball squats on Bosu ball, leg curls, leg lifts, calf raises, 20 minutes on bike, and 5 min on elliptical. Plans to swim were cut short by running around trying to score GaGa tix for the better-half.

-Mar 21: Kicked my own butt with the Spartacus lifting circuit from Men's Health, 30 min on bike, 25 min rowing, 16 min intervals on elliptical, 20 min on reclined bike.