Not Many Workouts Left

   With the marathon fast approaching, this week seems like it has bee flying by.  Literally, April 18th is almost in the 10 day forecast on my weather channel iphone app.  I have been trying to finish my training strong with some good cardio workouts this week.   After a solid workout Tuesday, I was determined to follow it up with another good one on Wednesday.  After work got finished, I headed straight over the YMCA and took up my usual spot on my elliptical.  By now I am thoroughly convinced that nobody else in the world uses this elliptical because it is so mind numbingly boring.  Regardless, it has worked out well for me because in all of the times that I have been to the YMCA in the past 4 months I have never once had to wait to get on it.
   After a little bit of light stretching, I hopped on the elliptical.  I punched in the normal information it asks for ... Program - "Manual", Weight - "200", Time "40".  Like I said yesterday, my goal for today was to have a shorter but high intensity workout that incorporated a lot of periods of increased resistance.  While I don't think there is any good preparation for running the hills of Newton (other than running 20 miles and then trying to run up them), I am hoping that high resistance on the elliptical will get my legs used to increase work load.  Like most of my training, this again seems to be a big theoretical extrapolation that I am hoping will hold true.   Once my workout started, I was off.  I felt good and the fact that I was down to my last few high intensity workouts really helped motivate me.  Cardiovascularly I felt great and was able to do the 40 minutes no problem.  The "hills" that I through in definitely worked well to wear me down, but I was able to push through and keep up a good pace.  All in all, I finished the 40 minute workout and covered a distance of 4.25 "elliptical miles" which is actually a pretty good pace for me.
    It definitely helps motivate me to know that I really only have two more legitamite workouts left before the race.  My goal is to do a 60 minute workout on Friday and a 90-100 minute workout on Sunday.  After that, next week will basically consist of a couple of low intensity workouts to get the heart rate up and keep the muscles loose. Hopefully the last few workouts will continue to go well and I will be ready on the 18th.