Big Bricks.

Yesterday I did my second or third bike/run brick of the training season. Those are the hard ones. Mondays I do a run/swim brick, and now Tuesdays I do strength/bike. I was supposed to just run Wednesday and bike Thursday, but work got complicated and blah blah, so I made it up on Thursday. Which is long-bike day. So it was a big day.

I’m working hard at picking up pace on the bike. I was moving pretty rapidly a lot of the time yesterday. I even did a whole mile at 21 mph, and it was on flat ground without a sympathetic wind. Just me and my legs and my bike, churning out a sub-3 minute mile. Overall I averaged 15.55 miles per hour for 25 miles. That included a stop to pee and multiple traffic stops, slow rides over cobblestones and gravel and boardwalks, path congestion in places, etc..

It took me an hour and thirty-seven minutes. That’s a solid ride. I was especially gratified that I wasn’t quite as saddle-sore as my prior long ride, and my hands didn’t go numb at all. I still have a lot of endurance to build. It’s different on the bike than running, where it’s all about fitness. On the bike, I just have to train my body to accept the insult of the position and seat for long durations. It’s challenging.

After the bike, I planned to go right out on my run, but I had to chat with my boss for a half an hour on the phone. So I ran after a short break. Which is fine. I think on race day a nice sit for ten minutes or so at the bike-run transition might well be called for. To let my back muscles ease up and relent from the hunched-over grip they assume after a long time on two wheels.

I was able to go out and run a hard 4 miles, at a 9:11 pace, which is fast for me, and for now. I’ve been running fewer miles lately due to the pick-up in other exercises and also due to me skipping a couple of long runs that I didn’t feel up to. That’s a bad plan, but I have the right to rest my mind as well as my body when I feel like I need to. If it makes me hurt more on race day? Well, race day was always gonna hurt.

My heart rate was way up on the run. Up in the 175-180 range for a lot of it. That’s too high. But I felt fine. I was able to turn in one of my miles at an 8:40 pace. It was cool and dry, and I don’t expect to be able to make anything like that pace even for the Olympic triathlon in June. Which is fine. I know my June Olympic will be slower than last year’s triathlon, because the bike course is about 6 miles longer.

My only goal with triathlons is to crawl across the finish line with one second to spare. June will be hot. September will be hot. Both might be humid. It will be difficult and painful. But I think I can get there. I hope I can get there.