Brick By Brick

Along with my campaign to become a better runner is my campaign to become a better triathlon runner. What's the difference? Runners just have to run. A triathlon runner has to run after the bike.

To that end, the last two weekends have found me doing dedicated bike-run brick workouts. That's where I ride a 9-mile loop around Hansen Dam, do a reasonably fast transition, and immediately head out on a 2-mile run. Because of the quick transition I do these in my trisuit (triathlons are great for overcoming one's self-consciousness :-).

Last week was the first and it was pretty tough. I took 15 minutes between sets and I could only squeak out a 1-mile run on the second set. This week I took (at least) 30 minutes between sets and made it the whole 2 miles. Times on the run were pretty good, too. The awkwardness of switching from the bike to the run is dissipating with each of these. I'm spinning a higher cadence towards the end of the bike and learning to pace myself. Of course, race day is a totally different animal but I'm trying to be a racy as possible in these workouts so I hope race day is not too different. These workouts are really tiring so, with the next triathlon in two weeks, today's workout is the last brick until after the next race, where I hope to have a better run report than my last race.