Bricking it!

The effect of switching from cycling to running can be profound; first-time triathletes are often astonished at their muscle weakness, and the bizarre, sometimes painful sensation in their thighs a few hundred yards into the run, and discover that they run at a much slower pace than they are accustomed to in training. Triathletes train for this phenomenon through transition workouts known as "bricks": back-to-back workouts involving two disciplines, most commonly cycling and running

I didn’t write that… That’s from Wikipedia. I just pinched it to give some gravitas to this week’s post. If you haven’t guessed, I did a brick.

I have been quietly freaking out about this triathlon that is about a month away and on a training ride last week with one of my triathlon chums it was suggested that I should try brick workouts. Having an afternoon free at the weekend and with the weather lovely I decided to give it a go.

I sort of live on a big loopy road that is a nice one and a bit kilometre circuit. I decided to do laps of it, partly because there is a Strava segment around it and partly because I could be consistent with the effort I was putting in. The first half of the loop is flat before dropping into a shallow downhill. On the bike I powered around at maximum effort until the inevitable uphill on the backside of the loop slowed my pace, I would then catch my breath until the hill dropped down again where I would hundred percent it again. Around and around I went.

Ten kilometres later at an average 26kmh (which is fast for me) I smashed it home to quickly transition into my running kit. This probably wasn’t a textbook triathlon transition as I had to find the front door key, get the bike in the house to abandon it in the kitchen, and let the dog out before I could put my trainers on but I tried to be as fast as I could. It took about 3 minutes for me to get running and considering my dog faffed about outside I think that’s not bad for my first transition.

I was warned about the jelly legs, and my run didn’t disappoint. My quads didn’t really want to get going at all for the first couple of kilometres. I was pleased that I sped up though with negative splits for the total 5k run. I was quicker than I thought I would be though being only three minutes shy of my personal best. Today my quads are still aching in a way that I haven’t had from running or cycling in isolation.

So, in summary, I enjoyed the brick and I genuinely think that it has added something to both my running and cycling… and I’m still freaking out about doing a triathlon in 4 weeks’ time.