"Essential Leg Exercises"

After the run this morning, I sauntered over to the gym (well, okay, I drove, but you get the idea) for the leg weight regimen. Nothing earth shattering to report, except that it felt remarkably good to work the legs in this manner following the easy run. This phenomenon has previously been noted in this blog, I think, but it's interesting to me. It would seem that leg weight work after a run would just make you more tired. That doesn't seem to be the case for the most part. I wouldn't do a double workout like this any closer to a long run, but it makes for a nice end to the bulk of the running week. The standing calf raises are burners (2 sets of 10 reps, 3 foot positions each set), but everything else is either nice and easy (hamstring curls and quad extensions), peripheral muscles (4-way hip machine), or slow and steady reps with larger weight (leg press). Seated calf raises are sometimes a challenge late in each set, too. Finished off the workout with 10 minutes on the cycle to spin things down, and then I did the stretching routine.

Tomorrow is the "other" gym workout and some cycling, and that's all. We've got Mt. Bonnell on Saturday morning, which is usually a pretty fun run. I hope it stays fairly cool through Saturday morning at least!