First Bike/Run Brick

With my first indoor tri rapidly approaching (2/22), I decided to modify my training plan to incorporate a few bike/run bricks earlier than I normally would have otherwise.

I changed my training plan to look like this:

Monday: Run 3 miles speedwork. Weights
Tuesday:Bike 60 minutes intervals 5x5min
Wednesday: Run easy, 3.3 miles. Weights
Thursday: Swim 100m warm up, 100m fist drills, 800m main set, 100m cd
Friday:Bike 30 minutes tempo, transition to run 2 miles.
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Swim 100m warm up, 100m drill, intervals (100,50,25,25)x2, 200m cd

The actual brick was VERY hard. I do mean VERY.

Bike Portion: Because I'm getting ready for an indoor race, I wanted to ride the bike portion on a stationary bike. The stationary bike seemed to think I needed lots of practice on hills, as it spent a good amount of my ride surprising me with 6% to 20% grades. I hope I don't have to do an actual tri on a course like that any time soon. Another down side to the stationary bike was my position on the bike. I wanted to lean forward and roll my hips forward as I pedaled, but I was stuck VERY upright, like I was riding a beach cruiser instead of a race bike.

Run Portion: Everyone that has ever raced a tri has said "watch our for your legs after T2, they'll be like jello." Wow, was that ever the truth. The first half mile of my run was really a challenge. It took about as much exertion keeping me on my feet as it took to propell myself forward. It was really like someone had removed the bones in my legs, and I had to work extra hard to keep myself stable and upright. After that first half mile though, things did come together. I had orginally planned on running 3 miles in this workout, but unfortunately in mile two I started having some cramps and stomach issues that I'm pretty sure were my body's way of telling me "slow down" so I decided to heed that advice and cool down after 2 miles.

Bike Stats: 30 min, 9 miles, 18mph avg.
Run Stats: 20:45, 2 miles, 10:23/mi
Total 52:50, 862 calories.

Overall, I wish I had made it the three miles, but I think I did pretty darn good anyway. I still have 3 months until my first A priority race, and based on today's performance I'm much more confident I can do it. It was also nice to see that I could bike and run back to back and not be all that much slower on the run. Honestly that surprised me.