I need some planning feedback.....

[rocknrollgirl]

Hi Guys,
I am rearranging my training schedule, and I was just curious. When do you do your bricks?

I have been running intervals on Tuesday and then riding hills afterwards.
Light recovery run on Thursday
Long run on the weekend.

I could easily flip flop the Tuesday workout to become the brick, but I hate to give up the intervals as I know they are making me stronger and faster.


Where would you put it?

I could probably do an easy ride on thursday followed by an easy run and make it an easy brick????? Is that an oxymoron?



Oh and btw, I am 6 weeks out from my first Xterra of the season, 8 weeks in to really hard training. I went to register on Friday and they canceled the race. I was SO bummed.:(


Thanks in advance,
Ruth

[tribogota]

I don´t know much about xterra races, but in tri, running is after biking, so I usually train bricks in the order of the race. I do my brick on Friday, swim, velodrome, track.

[rocknrollgirl]

Xterra is off road triathlon. I mountain bike and trail run instead of riding and running on the road. Same order, same disciplines, just off road.

[Wahine]

I only do bricks in the middle of the season and the 2 months before I start racing - so you're right in there.

I like the idea of your "easy brick". I also throw in a really short brick some other day of the week that could take place of your intervals or you could tack onto a harder bike workout. Your bricks don't have to be long, 15 to 20 min will do it for the run. So you could just add a hard tempo run after a harder bike ride and that would work well for your intensity brick. That might not work for you if you're already running intervals on your hard bike day. You could still do it but I'd shorten up the run before hand and definitely keep the run after to 15 min.

Or you could do short bricks on your Thur reco day. Ride 10 min, run 5 and go through that 3 times. Don't worry about intensity, just getting the muscel transition to happen easily.

The more years of racing you have behind you the less important the bricks become. They are meant to teach your muscles to switch quickly and efficiently from cycling motion to running motion. Once you're good at that, you should still do the occasional brick to sharpen you before the season starts but once racing season starts... you'll be doing bricks in your races.:D

[rocknrollgirl]

Thanks for the feedback. I see all of these training plans for even for shorter races with a heavy emphasis on bricks workouts.

One plan that I looked at for an Olympic had bricks of 90/40 twice a week in month two. :eek:
It just seemed like a lot to me.

I like the idea of doing the shorter brick and rotating through the transition several times, or just adding a quick transition run on to my long ride on the weekends.

[kacie tri-ing]

Ok--so I am not done with my HIM yet, but my coach has only had me do about 3 bricks in the whole trying cycle (they were pretty long). I struggle with some hip alignment issues, and the bricks are pretty rough on me.

I agree that you don't have to do that many of them to be ready (I HOPE!). By the third one, my legs felt just fine when I started running!

[Veronica]

I guess it kind of depends on what you need. I found for the sprint and Olympic distance my legs didn't feel too badly for the run. But for the HIM, they were DEAD! My plan is to do a longer ride - 30 - 40 miles and then do a three mile run. Once I start doing bricks that is. :D

Veronica

[kacie tri-ing]

One of my bricks was 2.5 hours on the bike folled by over an hour of running. That's the one I felt pretty good on. I am trying to gain confidence from feeling good on that run!

[kacie tri-ing]

By the way, I thin the Xterras sound awesome! Have you done them before?

[rocknrollgirl]

I have raced Xterra before.
I did only Xterra in 2007 and qualified for and competed at Nationals. Last year I had ITB from hell that kept me off the bike for 3 months so I was behind training. I raced my mt bike and did road sprints last season.

(I am not totally new at this, you would think I would have the brick thing all figured out right?)

Anyway this season I am back to racing Xterra, I am racing my mt bike for a team which is a ton of fun. My first Xterra got canceled so I am doing an Olympic instead.

And it is a TON of fun....hard...but so much fun.

And good luck to you HIM girl!!!

[kacie tri-ing]

I have noticed that some of our xterra trail races were cancelled this year. Do you think there is some reason for that? Participation?

I don't think I quite have the guts for the mountain biking part of it yet!

[kacie tri-ing]

Did you compete in nationals? That sounds so awesome and really impressive!

[rocknrollgirl]

I did compete in Nationals. It was an amazing experience. Really amazing. Cold swim in lake Tahoe!!!! 57 degrees! Snow on the ground.

The race here was canceled because the park raised the insurance premium and the race director could no longer afford to do the race at that venue.