Any reason to/not to incorporate short bricks into the off season workouts? I was thinking along the lines of 30/30min stuff, nothing big.
I try to run for 15 minutes after every bike ride.
Dave
I do after my A.M. spin classes 15 to 25 mins or so depending on how much time i have and how i feel. I figure an extra 7-10 miles a week running wont hurt anything.
Grant
i do 2-3 bricks a week all season. the off season/winter ones are much shorter (or one part is, like a longer ride, short run), it helps once races roll around.
I think there’s a specificity to bricks that a lot of folk ignore. My personal experience (very limited mind you) is to leave them to race prep periods and use your off-season for technique work and general aerobic conditioning (in the broadest sense of the terms)…easy to forget how to run fast with good form, undo good running habits, etc when you’re doing every session on tired legs (IMHO). I did zero brick runs for 6 months, instead doing a run focus culminating in a spring marathon, and am running better off the bike than I ever expected this season. Just my 2 cents…
Another benefit of bricks for me is that you can knock out two workouts at one time. You only need to warm up once, cool down once, shower and get changed once, recovery shake once, etc. I did a 3hr/1hr brick on both saturday and sunday this weekend, all at pace. It was nice to see where my fitness was after all the lsd training.
Bingo!
If you ask him and while I could be completely wrong, I believe time management is the most important value bricks bring to the table. & it does not matter in which order bike-run or run-bike (or even run-swim or swin-run etc.)
Fred.
i brick at least 3 times a week, maybe more. I commute to work on the bike,25 miles on-way, have to run after that. swim at lunch and ride back home!
Anyone else do short brick repeats? I like to do 6 miles bike, 1.5 run 4 or 5 times in a row. It’s good transition practice and it allows me to get in some miles but still go full blast. Would this actually be considered a brick workout?
During the summer I pretty do the same: bike to work (20 miles one way), swim @ lunch, and run (usually before getting back on bike to head home).
Fred.
While I wouldn’t pass myself off as an expert, I would tend to agree with show pony. The offseason especially, but also the base phases are for training mostly as a swimmer, cylcist, and runner. It is a great time to hone your technique in the individual sports. Your technique will suffer if you are fatigued from the start of your workout. You will have plenty of time to meld the three sports together in the build, taper, and peak phases.
I like doing short indoor bricks in the winter because for me it eases the monotony of indoor training during bad weather. I figure it’s a good thing since I’m planning some early season duathlons anyway.
to each their own of course…just figured the OP will get lots of “YES, do bricks!” responses so thought I’d throw in something else to consider…again, just my humble opinion on what works for me
.
All the responses have been great, and all points well taken. my original intent was to see if there was a reason from a wear and tear standpoint not to do regular bricks, but it sounds like most of you do them regularly enough without incident.
yep i do those.
once every two weeks or so i’ll have one that is something like 30 min ride, 2 mile runx3, or something like that. most done between tempo and race pace.
I generally stopped doing bricks several years ago. When I improved my running, the transitions followed automatically.
Find bricks too stressing (easy to get injured), try to avoid them, except now and then to save warm-up time, and a few long bricks as part of specific race preparation (just to ensure myself that I still manage to run fast and long after long bike rides).
I train and focus on IM distance only, but also participates(and sometimes wins)in local oly and sprints - I’m always running fast direct from bike despite lacking bricks.
Only once on a while during the off season, I would rather use the time for specific cycle or run training. Unless you do them consistently all the way through race day the body has a habit of forgetting. So for the most part i start this late in the day a i boost training before beginning to taper, so i dont give my body time to forget too much. However everyone is different thank goodness, so what do what feels good to you mentally and physically.
I’ve never found any benefits in terms of better race performance from increasing the number of my weekly bricks. I race Olympic and half-IMs, and I do just one brick workout per week. Length varies depending on training phase, but I cap the longest brick workout at 2hrs total. My bike is excellent (frequently top-10 overall in local races with 300-500 participants); in terms of my running, I started as an average runner and moved up to top 15% over the past 2-3 racing seasons. The gains have come primarily from twice weekly interval workouts, weekly 1-hr pace runs at LT, and an endurance run (12-18mi) once every two weeks or so. I also need to mention (1) water running workouts, and (2) getting FIST fitted on my bike. Didn’t really have any trouble with running off the bike beforehand, but afterwards I found myself shooting out of T2 significantly looser.
First off, what alot of people call bricks are actually transition runs, and in the off season there’s nothing wrong with hoping off the bike and going for a transition run. When I do “Brick” work, I usually refer to shorter intervals (Being a duathlete, I typically will do run-bike-run bricks, with 2-3 repeats, typically 1mi-3mi-1mi, with a few minutes rest in between each repeat). I only do those types of bricks when I’m closer to and in season, to get transition practice and to train the switchover in muscles when fatigued and pushing at race intensity. This time of year, when I can I will do 15min of running after longer trainer/roller rides, but mainly focus on building base.