She's a Brick

The training is continuing with a rather predictable routine at this point.  The one exception to my grind was Saturday.  As an Indiana winter would have it, we got a nice bump in temps at the end of the week and into Saturday.  It was definitely temperate enough to take some training outside. The only conflict was the fact that I had signed up and paid for my indoor cycling therefore the bike was not going to be able to hit the salt and gravel covered roads of Indy. 
My schedule for the day was a swim workout at 6AM, cycling at 10:30, and with the outside pleasantries my riding buddies planned to do a run right after the bike session.  This is called a brick workout.  Like Hoosier there is not a a real definitive answer to where the term brick comes from.  The most fitting seems to be B-bike, R-run, ick as in icky.  Any way, this will be the first of many and something I have done in the past.  They are an essential phase of you training and its definitely one that is not pleasant.  The real purpose is to simulate race conditions and to begin to build muscle memory for such changes. When you suddenly change a repetitive action on your body it does not always respond well.  With the longer races its even more drastic due to the length of activity or time in a similar motion.  For those of you less active folk, its kind of like getting out of the car after a long ride.  Next time try to start running as soon as your feet hit the ground for a little more pleasure to your arrival. 
The morning swim was pretty intense so the stage was set for an active day.  A fellow swimmer and I grabbed a coffee at the local shop to commiserate the workout and discuss performance and shoot the bull.  Upon, gaining momentum from my caffeine I headed home to load the bike and drive to the cycle studio.  The ride at the studio began with a high intensity and some push among fellow riders. I think the term testosterone in the air was mentioned.  In fact a few others were going to have a time trial so the mojo was definitely present.  With the level of intensity we started with, the rest decided to join in on the time trial as well.  This is basically a flat course ride all out for 20 minutes.  They really hurt you in a bad way.  Needless to say I survived, but I will say the cookies did churn a bit a the last closing second but no eruption, thankfully.  The great news was that I improved on my power measurement.  This is the average wattage output or force you give for that period.  I increase mine by about 10% in under 4 weeks.  I am now riding at an average wattage of 249.  For reference, this is still fairly paltry compared to high level riders such as those you may see in the tour de France.  They run well into the 350 watts range for over 4 hours and can do 700 and 800 when climbing the Alps.  Either way, my progress was very solid and I have definitely noticed the improvement.  So, to do the brick, we quickly completed out studio session and headed out for a run.  Fortunately, the studio sits right next to the Monon trail here in Indy.



This is a great multipurpose trail that is a converted railroad bed that goes from the far northern reaches of Indy all the way to downtown.  Many cities have taken advantage of this type of real estate to do the same. 
We headed north and did an out and back of 3 miles.  This took us through the heart of Carmel in an area that has thrived from this very trail and the people that are using it.  The trail was definitely bustling with activity with the 64 degree temps and slightly sunny.  The run was good and all four of us enjoyed the chat on our results from the ride, our goals for the year and again just shooting the bull.  Our speed was respectable and the conditions ideal.  The brick workout was completed.  Now I was hustling home to get the Christmas lights down in such loveliness.