first brick training: success

Brick training is "training on two disciplines during the same workout, one after the other with minimal or no interruption in between, just as you would do in a race" (definition from beginnertriathlete.com). This may not seem like a big deal, but your muscles work so differently for the different legs of a triathlon, it is difficult to jump off the bike and go straight to running. So I heard- I hadn't tried it till last weekend.

Husband and I had some time last Saturday afternoon, and didn't feel like going on a long ride, so we tried our first brick training. We don't have a specific triathlon in mind, but I imagine we'll do our first in the spring. Anyway, we headed out to do a 14 mile out and back (destination: Canyon Bicycles to pick up some lube to clean my chain). Generally flat, with one hill (well, the same hill twice) up to the Oquirrh temple. Our average speed was 17.5 mph. Considering a) I am generally slow at everything and b) there were stoplights along the way, I felt pretty good about that. As soon as we got home we jumped off, put on running shoes and headed back out.

Note: it is a good idea to switch to a low gear the last couple minutes on the bike to get your legs used to a higher cadence.

Once I got used to the switch from cycling to running, I got to a comfortable pace and felt pretty good. Would have stayed that way if Husband actually enjoyed running a tiny bit and didn't want to stop a mile in. Oh well. Something to work on.

Also, how intense is Kona??? There was a cool documentary on this weekend.

photo from here