Shortest Brick Workout EVER

Yesterday, I had an hour to squeeze in a quick SUPER SHORT brick workout before this weekend's duathlon.

Normally, my brick workouts look like one of these:

#1. 15-30 mile ride with a 5K-10K run afterwards. If I'm training for a sprint race, I'll do less milage. If I'm training for an Olympic Distance race, I'll lean towards higher milage.

OR

#2. That crazy duathlon workout that I like to do a few times a year where I bike on a trainer and do 10 minutes of biking followed by a 1 mile run back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

I've done that second workout a number of ways.... from on the track:

... to out of my garage with friends:

But yesterday, I didn't do a longer "traditional" brick workout, nor did I do the long "burning" bike / run / bike / run / bike / run / bike / run workout. Yesterday, I did a quick 16 mile ride with a 1 mile run-off at the end. Why so short? Because my duathlon this weekend is only a 2 mile run, a 10 mile bike, and a 2 mile run.

On the bike, I warmed-up for about 2 miles, hit the next 5.5 at more of a moderate pace, and then went HARD for the remaining 8.5 miles.

Here's the route I rode:

- At "A:" 20.2 mph ave. It's downhill to there, and then I started the HARD miles.
- At "B:" 20.5 mph ave. Then I started climbing back up from the river's edge.
- At "C:" 20.1 mph ave. I was at the base of a nasty hill, and I took the "back way" up.
- At "D:" 19.5 mph ave. I was spent at the top of the hill. Nice.
- Back at home: 19.6 mph ave. It was a LITTLE into the wind the final few miles, but I pushed as much as I could. I "spun out" my legs a bit near the end, but I kept up the effort.

I had a 1:15 transition as I hopped off my bike, ran it to the house, put it in the basement, changed shorts (cause I wanted to - I didn't NEED to), changed shoes, took quick swig of water, ran out the door, and hit watch on front sidewalk.

Then I did a quick lap about our "big" block:

A counter-clockwise loop from the green arrow back past the green arrow
and around the corner for 1 mile

My legs had that great / horrible heavy feeling as soon as I took off. And that's why I wanted to do a quick brick - to make sure I knew how to react to those heavy legs during the race! After less than a quarter mile, my legs felt looser.

I hit the half mile mark in 2:53, and made it back past home to the 1 mile mark in another 2:54, for a 5:47 mile. That was hard, but not "all out."

Time for some stretching / rest, and then a RACE ON SATURDAY!!! First multi-sport race of the season! It shouldn't be a problem that I wasn't on my bike during the entire month of April... right?....