Let there be BRICK!

Last night i did one of the many Brick sessions that are in my trainng plan

Brick training session are sessions where you train for two of the disciplines back-to-back, traditionally a brick session is BIKE then RUN but can also be SWIM then BIKE or any other combination that you can think of, (but some people mat call them something else).

They all have there place in training some more than others, generically any training session made up of two discipline will help your body prepare for doing more than one thing in a race, so transitions from one discipline to another will not be a big shock to the system, as Triathlon is a sport in itself and not just a sum of its parts. Plus it is also a way of helping you get all those required sessions fitted into a weeks training

Swim to Run training is normally done as part of open water training (on my part) where I will have a long OW swim followed by a short tempo run to loosed up afterwards, this type of training can also be useful for Aquathalons.

Running then cycling, this is mores specific for those that take part in duathlons that are often Run-Bike-run

Swimming then Cycling gives us the chance to practice T1 (which can take some time), getting out of our wetsuit and off onto the bike, many people have problems with dizziness and nausea when moving from the prone position of the swim to the upright position and if you are like this, this is a very useful session

Cycling then running, this session is the most popular although (IMO) a lot of training plans do not introduce them early enough. Firstly the prepare you for the ‘jelly leg’ felling of moving from Bike to run, next they help you more quickly improve your generic endurance as Bike-run brick session can be longer earlier in the season as doing two different disciplines does not place the same stress on the body as would just a long bike or long run and I would do one of these Brick sessions most weeks These bricks and can be approached different ways

A steady/easy bike followed by steady/easy run, used to help build overall endurance and train the body for the transition

A hard structured bike followed by steady/easy run, this is a bike focussed brick session that will leave our legs feeling like they belong to someone else when you start the run, great fun, and great preparation due to the fact that you will be most likely giving it all on you bike before you start you run in a race

A steady/easy bike followed by hard (and/or) structured run, this one is run focussed and helps the body to adapt to getting up to speed on the run as quick as possible.

A hard Bike followed by a hard run, is simply what it say s on the tin and is race specific and lets you try out back to back in race simulated conditions, but (for me) this would probably normally be a shorter session so not to risk injury.

Bricks do not have to be the same every time, be creative and mix them up, for me last nite was a Bike focused brick and took the form of: -

BIKE (2:10 total)

• 20-30mins warm up, mixed HR
• 8 x 5 min seated climbs at VO2max
• 8 x 1 min hill sprints, flat out
• Mixed cadence work to finish

RUN

• 1 hour trail run

So get out there and brick

WW

Doubts and Fears

From time to time as you work towards your Ironman goal, you mind will start working overtime and allsorts of doubts and fears will creep in, trying to derail you a knock you off stride, these doubt and fears can take many forms :-

• What if I’m not training enough?
• Am I training too much?
• I’m carrying to much weight
• I swim like a drowning rat?
• Joe Blogs seems to be so much further on than me
• I’m to slow on XXX discipline
• Etc etc …

Well for me these doubt and fears are always focussed around one main area, yes I know I didn’t do even half the training I should have last year, but my doubt and fears are always focused around the BIKE.

I am a week cyclists and see it as my biggest limiter, I am poor on the climbs, I am slow, my knees ache, my back struggles with the time I’m on the bike and my muscles pump out to quickly and so on…

But when I look at it rationally, I am training and following a plan, my plan includes endurance, strength and skills elements, I have spent the off season focussing on improving my core and generic strength. So I know I am doing what is required of me to improve and there for I should not worry, I know my training plan is balanced in away to give enough focus to this weakness but not overly sacrifice my training else where.

But I do, I still worry: -

• I’m to slow on the bike
• I’m going to show myself up on the hill climbs
• I’m not spending enough time in the saddle

But I need to squash these fears and doubts, focus on the positives and take strength and resolve in what I know I am doing.

So if you too, suffer doubt and fears on you path towards Ironman, take heart in the knowledge you are not alone.

Onwards and upwards

WW

A look back on March

March for me was always intended to be a breakthrough month, it was to have a focus on pushing myself and moving my training on to the level I believe is needed for me to better my Ironman PB time.

To do this I set myself the challenge of training every day of the month, I know that there is a need for rest and recovery, I know that this is not something that can be maintained due to the risk of overtraining an injury, BUT it can be done for a month, after all I have a desk job and spend most of the time sat down and I aimed to utilise active recovery instead of rest, such as sub 2k swims etc.

In total I managed to train almost 55hours in March

I thought training every day would see the weight fall off me but I actually put on 2lbs … I get hungry when I train a lot .. but I did see my body fat drop significantly to 17.5% the lowest since Ironman Germany 2006

March also saw a number of other personal barriers pushed through for me …

• I manage to break 300pts in the training point league for the first time ever beating my form PB by about 60pts
• I also did my longest swim since 2006 … 7000m

So all-in-all a good month onward and upward

The following pie chat shows how my training was split for the month

This graph shows my monthly training my time (hours) with a significant jump in March

WW