Half Iron Brick workouts?
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marlt
Posts: 27 Member
I'm doing my first half iron in July. I've got two years of sprint tris under my belt and I'm planning an olympic distance race for June. Right now I'm doing three workouts of each sport a week. My long bike each week is at 45 miles right now and my long run is at 12 miles. I'm loosely following this training plan: http://www.trinewbies.com/tno_trainingprograms/tno_HIM.asp
My distances are more that what is listed in the plan but I'm still generally following the progression. Wondering what you folks that are experienced with this distance would recommend for brick workouts? There isn't any listed in the training plan but I know enough about tris to know how important they are. Would you run after every bike ride or focus on one major brick each week? Any feed back or suggestions would be appreciated!
My distances are more that what is listed in the plan but I'm still generally following the progression. Wondering what you folks that are experienced with this distance would recommend for brick workouts? There isn't any listed in the training plan but I know enough about tris to know how important they are. Would you run after every bike ride or focus on one major brick each week? Any feed back or suggestions would be appreciated!
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What are you defining as a "brick" workout? In my personal opinion an actual "brick" workout is when you do a good length ride, followed by an actual run of some significance. Like 25-50 on the bike and 4-6 miles running.
By that definition I don't ever really do "bricks". The run is not usually going to be all that good of a run, and therefore you won't really gain much benefit from it as a run workout.
That being said, after every long ride of any length (even to 80-100 miles) I will always hop off the bike, throw on running shoes and knock out 2 miles. Just 2 miles, all easy. The idea is NOT to get in a run workout. The idea behind this is to simply get used to knocking the bike cobwebs out of your legs quickly so you can run well off the bike in a race. I call this a "transition run". I don't bother with these after any regular mid-week short ride. This is strictly something I do after the longest ride of the week.
I don't see any benefit to doing an actual brick workout though.0 -
I generally have my athletes run 25-35 minutes off the bike with their long rides. The main goal is to learn to get your HR under control off the bike and find a groove. There are zero physiological benefits to doing LONG bricks.1
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There are no benefits, but there can be detriments to doing long brick runs. You are going to do this in a race, sure, but you are not going to gain any training benefit by running while beat. You may, however, begin to ingrain bad running habits as compensation for feeling rough coming off the bike. You certainly don't want to do that. Save the longer runs for a different day when you can approach the workout fresh (well as fresh as possible) and with good form.
Use the transition run to practice just that... transitions.
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Ok, good advice. Thanks folks. What about doing one or two of those longer bricks for the mental benefit? Given this is a new distance for me I'm stuggling a bit to trust my training and 'know' that I can go the full distance come race day.0
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Ok, good advice. Thanks folks. What about doing one or two of those longer bricks for the mental benefit? Given this is a new distance for me I'm stuggling a bit to trust my training and 'know' that I can go the full distance come race day.
If you want to. Just be very cognizant of the added recovery needs coming out the back end. I'd rather an athlete be able to wake up and execute the next day's workout correctly, but if you feel the need go for it.0 -
scott091501 wrote: »Ok, good advice. Thanks folks. What about doing one or two of those longer bricks for the mental benefit? Given this is a new distance for me I'm stuggling a bit to trust my training and 'know' that I can go the full distance come race day.
If you want to. Just be very cognizant of the added recovery needs coming out the back end. I'd rather an athlete be able to wake up and execute the next day's workout correctly, but if you feel the need go for it.
Agreed. Remember that your training is not about any one session. It is about the accumulation of training over a long period of time that will get you to the finish line. It isn't just about that last 20 miler, or that last 100 mile ride. It is about the 3000 miles you rode all year leading up to the race, or the 600 miles you ran. If you throw down a harder-than-necessary session and can't do your scheduled workout the next day, the mental benefit was not worth the physical detriment.
As far as trusting your training this is the HARDEST thing to do when you are starting out. I get that. I know you are aiming for a half-iron but let me relay this. I have a friend who wanted to do his first full Ironman but had never run a marathon before. I am of the opinion that marathons and the run at the end of an Ironman are NOTHING alike other than the distance. You don't approach them the same way, they don't feel like the same thing. In short, running an open marathon during your Ironman training will teach you nothing about the run after 2.4 and 112. I get there can be a mental aspect of running the distance at least once before hand, but in this case it won't help you much physically. I did my best to convince him of this but he insisted. He at least took my advice and ran a marathon 11 months before his planned full so the recovery didn't interfere with training. After his full Ironman race he said "yea... that was nothing like a marathon". Trust the training. It will get you there.0 -
"Trust the training. It will get you there."
This and be aware that more isn't really more. You can over train, so do take the training plan you are using to heart, if it says do X miles don't do X plus another Y because you can. If the workouts are feeling too easy, than perhaps that plan isn't the right plan for you.
Everyone goes through doubt about their training, but the plans work if you follow them. And trust the taper, you'll feel great and think you can just do X/Y/Z extra because you feel great. Don't. Trust me, first half I did, the week before I managed to tweak my back really badly because Hey! I had so much time and energy on my hands why not catch up on the list of stuff that was ignored for the last X months! My race bike ride was 56 miles of back pain.0 -
i read once that some coaches have their half and full iron man athletes do a long run on sunday morning (60-90 minutes depending on race), and then in the late afternoon a 60 minute bike trainer workout followed by a 60 minute run. this will definitely get you used to the feeling in the legs for the race.
but like others have said, trust in your training. if you are following a plan, follow it.0 -
All good advice. Thanks to all of you! Mental toughness is one of the things I need to work on. It's always tough when you are doing a distance you haven't done before I think. I'll keep moving forward, my race is July 11 so I'll stick with my plan and trust that it will get me there.0
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All good advice. Thanks to all of you! Mental toughness is one of the things I need to work on. It's always tough when you are doing a distance you haven't done before I think. I'll keep moving forward, my race is July 11 so I'll stick with my plan and trust that it will get me there.
i know what you mean. i'm doing my first half iron distance race in mid september. i've spent the last six months building my base on the bike and the run. the next ten weeks will be building speed and tri-specific training, such as bricks. then, 9 weeks out from my race i'll build up some volume again, and then taper.
god, i hope it all works.0 -
Ok, good advice. Thanks folks. What about doing one or two of those longer bricks for the mental benefit? Given this is a new distance for me I'm stuggling a bit to trust my training and 'know' that I can go the full distance come race day.
Just my $.02, but you'd probably have more of a benefit doing a short brick on Saturday after your long ride and save your legs for a more traditional long run on Sunday.0 -
Ok, good advice. Thanks folks. What about doing one or two of those longer bricks for the mental benefit? Given this is a new distance for me I'm stuggling a bit to trust my training and 'know' that I can go the full distance come race day.
Just my $.02, but you'd probably have more of a benefit doing a short brick on Saturday after your long ride and save your legs for a more traditional long run on Sunday.
Or put your long run mid week.
Long course triathlon training is ALL about consistency. Runners will say "my goal is XX miles this month", a normal age grouper who has other responsibilities should be "my goal is to get 90% of my scheduled workouts in."0 -
Ok, thanks. Right now I do a long bike Saturday and long run Sunday. I think I'll start running for 20-30 min after my long bike Saturday. Then I should still be able to do my long run Sunday. I may try a longer brick once or twice for my mental prep. If I do that it will replace a medium distance run and I'll move my long run to midweek. Thanks for the feedback.0
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I brick twice a week, Tuesday and Saturday. The ride on Tuesday typically ranges in the 20-25 mile range with intervals followed by a 4-6 mile tempo run. On Saturdays, I get a 30-45 minute easy run (Z2) in prior to my long ride. My form is better and does not have much effect on the ride. Sunday is then my long run of 8-10 miles. It's worked great for me.0
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i read once that you should brick roughly twice a week. once should be a "real" brick workout, where you do multiple rounds of bike-runs. and then the other should be just a 2-5 mile run (depending on your race) immediately after a bike workout.0
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Just thought of one other thing. I did a transition run after my long bike. Something I realized very quickly was that my fuelling must have been off on the bike. I'm not sure how to practice fuelling besides doing a few longer runs off the bike? I'm never sure how many calories to take in during the bike besides trial and error.0
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Once you get past Olympic Distance you are in the range where you pretty much have to fuel consistently. I go for 300 calories per hour on the bike for half and full distance races. For a half ironman I will mix 800 calories of Hammer Perpetuem into a bottle and use that as my bike fuel. That is enough fuel for the ~2:35-2:45 it takes me. My other bottle cage gets a sports drink (I use Scratch, but Gatorade, etc also work). I don't bother with gels.
For a full Ironman I will cram 1000 calories of Perpetuem into the bottle, and then put 5 gels into a pouch on my top tube. I'll get a little more from the sports drink. I try to get about 1700 calories into me during the bike leg of a full.
In both cases, I go down to 200-250/hr while running and I use primarily gels. For a half I will carry 4 gels (I run a 1:35ish half), and for a full I'll bring 8 with me and then eat stuff from aid stations if I feel like I need more.
You *must* practice this in training though. So if you are doing a 3 hour training ride it is important to bring 900 calories with you and get them in. You can't show up on race day having not trained your gut to accept fuel (especially at that quantity).
What works for me may not work for you though. I had a metabolic test done a while back that actually measured my burn rate at 800 calories per hour at "endurance" paces (IE what you would be doing for half and full ironman). That is unusually high and my coach actually would prefer if I took in 400/hr to compensate, however I found that was too much and was making me sick, so I backed off to 300/hr and I felt much better.0 -
Practicing fueling is essential. My problem is that I'm never nervous during training and nerves play havoc with my digestive system. I've started being particular about what I eat before a big race 2 days ahead of time - avoid raw veggies and other hard to digest items as well as really rich, fatty/fried foods. I estimate that I burn ~600 calories/hr and try to take in 2-300 calories on the bike. If it's hot, about half of those are from fluids (Winforce at half-strength and then whatever sports drink is provided by the race director diluted half-strength) and the remainder from solids - bonk-breakers or preferably home-made bars from the "Feed Zone Portables" cookbook. I switch to gels during running and try to get down the chicken broth and some sports drink as well as water.0
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Just thought of one other thing. I did a transition run after my long bike. Something I realized very quickly was that my fuelling must have been off on the bike. I'm not sure how to practice fuelling besides doing a few longer runs off the bike? I'm never sure how many calories to take in during the bike besides trial and error.
on your next long ride or run, do not eat anything before hand. this will be good, because you'll need to practice how you take in nutrition during your training.
personally, i like to take in a lot of liquid nutrition. i load up my bottles with two scoops per bottle. i used to keep one bottle of regular water on my bike in case i just wanted regular water, but that's a waste for me now. i've only done olympic distance races, and on those i try to have a gel shortly after i start on the bike, and one before i end the bike. i do not take solid nutrition on the run, and rely on liquid course nutrition.
on sprints i have my handle bar bottle, and thats it. nothing else.
for my half iron man this september, i'm going to have to start training to run with a fuel belt to be able to take in liquids better. ugh.
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