Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Week Six, Day Two: BRICK!!! 1 Hour Bike + 30 Minute Run

***WARNING:  Political Rant Below, skip ahead if you only want to hear about my Brick workout!***

I try and keep this blog about fitness but sometimes I venture into other realms and recently that realm has been politics.  Like many other Americans I have been very frustrated and downright angry with our government.  These feelings have not only been directed toward Democrats, I've been just as disappointed in the GOP as well. 

When Obama was elected he promised a new way that business would be conducted inside the beltway.  He promised that his administration would offer complete and utter transparency to the American public.  He promised that he would bring together Dems and Reps and encourage open and honest debate. 

So far he has not kept a single one of these promises.  In the last year we have seen an administration that has spent more taxpayers money in one year than any of the other combined administrations have ever spent combined!  We have witnessed bribes of union leaders in backrooms.  We have witnessed huge unprecedented earmarks to senators and reps. We have witnessed a Congress that could care less about the people they represent?  Where is the transparency?  Where is the bi-partisanship? Where the hell is the "change"?

We have a Congress that does not even care what the other side thinks and are beyond glib and arrogant toward us voters  The Dems have completely excluded the Republicans from any of the Healthcare negotiations and the Republicans haven't even offered a single alternative.  Our country was founded on debate.  We have no debate.  Without debate we have Tyranny.  I saw this quote today and I thought it was really good:
Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed -- and no republic can survive.
NO REPUBLIC CAN SURVIVE!  This is such a relevant quote and you know who said this?  John F. Kennedy.  Think about this quote and think about what is going on in our country right now.  How can our republic survive like this?

The reason I am talking about this is that Scott Brown, a Republican, just won the special election in MA for the open Senate seat that was the deceased Ted Kennedy's.  For those of you that do not follow politics MA is one of the most liberal, if not the most liberal states in our Country.  For a Republican to win this seat is a huge message to the Obama administration.  It is the American people saying that they are pissed and they have had enough.  It is MA voters remembering that quote above from JFK ... tonight was a good night for our Country!

So in the words of Johnny Drama, "VIC-TOR-YYYY!!"

Okay, time to come off the soap box  ***Ending Rant***

Damn, that just wiped me out!

Okay, so I woke up early this morning and my legs were TIRED.  Probably because I did my bike workout yesterday at 9pm - not enough time to recover.  So instead I decided I would do a bike-run brick after work.  My plan has me taking a day of rest tomorrow so I thought a brick would be appropriate.

 I got home and jumped on the bike and and rode for one hour.  I did some interval work and pushed it moderately hard.  I then slammed some water, changed into my running shorts, and put on my Asics. Stepped out the front door into the beautiful 72 degree weather and started to run.  My legs felt really good and fresh which is something that I have never experienced in previous Brick workouts.  I ended up running for 31 minutes and covered 3.53 miles.  If I wasn't so darn hungry I would have ran for a lot longer. 

The cool thing is that I did this brick and felt great afterward.  Last year if I would have done a brick like this I would have been exhausted. I am very pleased with how my training and conditioning is progressing.

Tomorrow is an off day.  I have a long day planned for work so I will more than likely adhere to my training plan and get back at it on Thursday.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

6 comments:

  1. Hi Jeff,

    Been following your blog for a week or so now. First off congrats on the triathlon training! I did one triathlon as loved the adrenaline rush I experienced start to finish! I was curious if you could describe your "brick" workout a little more, I wasn't sure what the whole objective was, is the goal to workout til you hit a brick wall?

    Thanks!
    -Matt

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  2. Matt,

    Welcome and good question. I was a little fired up last night and forgot to describe the Brick.

    Basically a Brick is a back-to-back workout. IE...swim 1500M then immediately Bike 15 miles. Or in my case yesterday. Bike for 1 hour and then immediately run for 30 minutes.

    The purpose is to try and simulate race conditions. From the school of practice how you race! If you really want to have fun with a Brick you can also practice transitions here as well. At times when doing a Brick I will setup a T2 area in my garage and go through all the steps in a normal race.

    Another reason for the bike to run Brick is to get your legs used to doing it. Getting off the bike and immediately running can be a challege because your legs go from doing one motion for a long time to doing another completely different one. By practicing this you will be more more adept to handling the change and on race day you will be trained on what to expect.

    Good luck with your tri training!

    Jeff

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  3. Mike - we may have a little out of line but it was funny. Annie was laughing, she just doesn't like confrontation like we do.

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  4. Cool thing about blogging, you can write about anything you want.

    my rant is 72 degrees, are you flipping serious, sighhhhh, divide that by 2 and its still not the temp here.

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  5. Nice job on the brick. I remember all to well about the heavy legs I get when doing a brick. Your super conditioned now.

    As far as your rant, well you know that I have agree with all of it. As an Independent, I am disappointed with both the Dem and and the GOP. There are a lot of Republicans that have gone to far towards the left.

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  6. Great job. That is an awesome brick workout. Great job

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