[Gemme]

Great workout today and I owe it to a conversation Alex and I had on the way to the gym. I asked him whether he thought it was better to do cardio first or the weight training first on the days that I do both and he said that studies have shown that if you start with a cardio warm up of 15-20 minutes and then you move on to weight training and then go back to a form of cardio to finish up, that it elevates the caloric burn of the second cardio session due to the weight training. But we surmised that outside of extra caloric burn, it's really up to the person and their body. So I gave it a shot and it seemed to work out pretty well.

First cardio: 15 min + 3 min cooldown. 108 cal, 1.05 mi. Treadmill.
Weight training for roughly an hour including lower body, back and abs.
Second cardio: 45 min + 5 min cooldown. 355 cal, 3.33 mi. Treadmill.

I got in tons of interval runs @ 6.0 mph. Some 1 min, some 2.5 min, most 2 min bursts. No 3 or 3+ min runs today though. Those are much harder to come by. Those last 30-60 seconds are tough sometimes.

I've found that if I've got the right music playing, my required recovery time is shorter. I knew a good jam can keep me running longer during the intervals but this is really good news too. A couple of my recovery breaks were as short as a minute to a minute and a half and that's excellent for me.

Alex and I talked about me going to his sports massage therapist for my legs. He looked at them and said it's obvious that my calves are hard as rocks and it's true. Even if I stretch right before bed, wear the compression sleeves and hand massage my legs, I wake up with really tight calves and that doesn't feel good. So, that's an option I'm going to look into because it's not fun cutting back because of the fear of injury or doing permanent damage.

It also affects my running since I change my gait depending on how my legs feel. Sometimes longer strides feel better and sometimes I need to take much shorter strides to avoid discomfort.

During the actual act of running, they don't hurt though. Before and after are a completely different story.

I know; I have a weird body.

Tomorrow is going to be an around the world cardio session. I'm going to start on my trusted steed, the treadmill, and move (at regular intervals) to every single piece of cardio equipment they have and finish back on the treadmill. No weights at all because I'm still sore from yesterday's arms and I can't do back to back leg days. It's going to be fun.

It's a state holiday here tomorrow so I'm not sure if the gym is going to be nearly empty like it was today or slam packed. We'll try to get there relatively early and see what happens.