Bricks

As promised (not that you care) here is the post on bricks. Bricks tend to be my least favorite part of triathlon training, though admittedly, i think the most important. Backtrack a little... a brick is a workout that involves 2 of the 3 "disciplines" but with no break inbetween and simulating race type transitions. Why is it called a brick? well because thats what your legs will feel like during that second workout.... and probably later that night. I would say a "classic" brick would be a bike-into-run because its would be the same order, and theoretically same intensity that you would feel during a race. but between having to be at work in the mornings, the variable pool hours, the fact that it gets dark at 3 in the afternoon in the winter in chicago and just random shifts in my schedule, I cant always do a looong bike and follow it up with a run. So i would really consider any two workouts, backto back with a short transition time a brick. In the end, the most important facet of the brick is that your body has little if any recovery time, and you are blasting 2 sets of muscle groups.

As of yet, I have not incorporated any real bricks into my maintainence period, but thatis going to change this week since march will be the beggining of my pre-season training (see starting week 3 of that schedule i posted... i would say i am already around week 15-16 so i will alter/lengthen their intensity a bit). One of my weekday workouts (like the one i will do today) will be tranformed into a back to back workout - which will not only let me get a little more sleep in the morning, but will rev up the intensity of my midweek. Also , my weekend 10-13 mile run will have some biking tacked on to the end, and similarly, my sunday long ride will have either a swimming or running compoenent as well. These will probably start out with just 15-20 minute additions, but believe you me, that is enough to let your body know your not kidding around.

I have decided that I will start my fundraising efforts (hopefully) in March with the beggining of my real training. however, depending on my method of collection which is still up in the air, its possible that I will not be able to collect donations until a couple months prior to the big day.