All right you uptight, hornery caged animals, let’s lighten up. What’s your favorite workout? Not neccessarily a favorite place to ride or run, but a semi-structured workout you do fairly regularly and look forward to or feel good about.
I know it’s a pretty broad question, but I’m really interested to hear some.
For me, I look forward to long, straight swims of 1,500 yds or more. Kinda ho-hum I suppose, but I really like the longer stuff. And I love doing a weekly fartlek run of about 6 miles with my black lab. Life is better for both of after these runs. Sheloves them, and both our tongues are hanging out when we’re done.
Let’s see, my favorite swim workout is the broken mile: 200 hard, 500 pull, 200 hard, 500 pull, 200 hard. I love that one. My favorite bike workout is anything that involves a lot of climbing - I’ve got a couple choice routes that only take about 2 hours to do, but you get a seriously good whuppin in those 2 hours. My favorite run workout is a good trail run in the reservation not far from my house - I can go anywhere from an hour to three, depending on the trails I take. On a nice Spring morning, that just cannot be beat.
My wife also does triathlons: Fav workout. I buy her flowers, take her out to eat, acting very attentive all the time--------come home put on the heartrate moniter!!!
Love them bricks!!! (1 mile swim + 6 mile run) or (25 mile bike + 6 mile run) are my favorite ‘standard’ bricks from the last two summers. I also really enjoyed the (8 mile kayak + 6 mile run) ‘brick’ I did this spring in 40 degree rainy weather, but that was just a one time thing–so far.
My favorite rides are endurance rides to new places that originate from my house. I like extending the perimeter from my house that I have ridden through. It is always nice to reflect on those rides when I am on road trips in my car in the offseason.
A close second are bricks I do just below my LT at the University of Michigan track. I alternate between my bike on a trainer and the track: 3 minutes recovery on bike, 5 minute cruise at LT on bike, 800 meter run at LT heartrate, repeat. I only do these late in the season and as an added bonus, UM cheerleaders started practicing in the track infield about 15 minutes into my last couple sessions.
Anywhere I can ride my bike. The more hills the better. The agony of the uphill climb is compensated by seeing how fast my max speed can get when going down the other side.
my favorite workout i have only done once. i got it from andrewmc who got it from k.gringas. it is a “triple brick” of 28 mi bike/10k run repeated three times in succession. that really makes for a fun morning.
I don’t do them regularly but here are some of my favorite work outs. All of them just happen to be swimming. =)
50x200’s. 200’s are anything from kick to pull to free to fly to IM with about 2 to 5 seconds rest.
A main set where we went 500 fast, 200 moderate, 1000 fast, 200 mod, 1500 fast, 200 mod, 1000 fast, 200 mod, 500 fast. Moderate was about 10-15 seconds rest if you made the fast innervalt which gave you about 10 seconds rest if you were able to hold your set pace. Heart rate was recommended to be over 220 bpm on the fast.
fav swim done after warm up and drill set 500swim take the avg pace per 500 then do 5x100 on avg pace + :05, 400swim, 4x100 on avg pace , 300 swim, 3x100 avg pace -:05, 200swim 2x100 -:10 Favorite bike would be a nice long ride where the pace line never gets screwed up and your sailing along flying through the miles. Did my favorite run tonight, a good friend and 45 min comfy hard or a tempo/threshold run
Favourite Swim Workout - broken 1000m - 400m, 40 sec rest, 300m - 30 sec rest, 200m - 20 sec rest, 100m … I swim the 400 as though I’m racing a 400 only and then try and swim each of the remaining sections faster … this is my “race fit” ready test.
Bike - Forks of the Credit hilly ride 80k and up north of Brampton, Ontario
Run - any solid track workout
Brick - 75k ride mixing hard and easy tempo followed by 20 x 400m in 1:12-1:15 on the track with 1 minute rest … then a solid nap!
hopefully step up to their new workout that they developed last year of 50/10/50/10 preceded by or followed by on the day before or the day after another century on the bike done hard, apparently you dont want to do much after this one weekend…and your legs are wasted for a week.
I did that 25/6*3 for the first time in temps below 32 degrees in Chicago, I think I actually cried during it.
My favorite workouts would be that one, any road race where I can run really hard (half marathons are my preference) or an evening ride in the summer of around 40 miles.
Although I don’t live there any longer, the once-a-month Splash and Dash with Carmel Valley Tri Club (CVTC) and Monterey Military Tri Team (M2T2) in Monterey Bay. About a 1500m swim, followed by a run down and back on the bike path paralleling the beach–about 5K. When the Triathlon at Pacific Grove is looming, the workout shifts to Lovers Point, with the Kelp Crawl and the run down to the Aquarium and back. Fond memories of the pain of that workout…
A fovorite workout of mine of late as been a variation of Chris McCormak’s. 15 min warmup on the bike trainer, then another 15 of high cadence in a challenging gear. Transition practice and run to the track (1/2 Mile) and hit 4x400 on 1:15-1:20 on 30". Run back home to the bike for another 15 min. in Zone 3 & 4. Do the bike run combo 4 to 5 times and your gone. This workout will make transitions come race season a breeze.
50*50M (all out) on 50sec from a dive (so you climb out after each one and then dive again).
It is harder than you think. Even better long course.
On the run
Any run where my dogs tire out before I do. Doesn’t happen very often but it is a great feeling of accomplishment to outdistance the never tiring beasts.
On the bike
My 20K to the golf course. 18 holes and then 20K home. Takes all day but I need a reward to get me on the bike and I enjoy golf.
This is my favorite swim that I do as my last big session before IM taper. Some years I haven’t been able to quite pull it off but when I can I know I am ready to bust a move.
#warmup 800 EZ 100 alt 100 free/nonfree
1x800 free, neg split, on 13:00
2x400 descending from 1–>2 and neg split both, on 6:30
4x200 descending on 3:15
2x (4x100 descending on 1:40)
warmdown 200 EZ
conveniently it comes out to 4200 for the day which is the IM swim distance.
In the pool my favorite work out is:
Warmup (usually about 500 yds, some free, some drills)
Then all as one set:
1x200, 2x175, 3x150, 4x125, 5x100, 6x75, 7x50, 8x75. The 200 is on 3:30 and each time the distance shortens, the time shortens by 25 seconds. It starts off feeling pretty easy, but ends up being a 3000 yd set with limited rest. The main set takes exactly 56 minutes.
Then of course do a couple hundred yds to cooldown.
In better weather, I do an easy 20 mile ride to get to my previous place of employment. I meet up with ex-coworkers who go out for a lunchtime 20 mile all out ride. Then I pedal the easy 20 to get home.
I love it because I get to hear what is going on at the old office and it reminds me why I decided to quit. I also like hammering with those guys and then bragging that that was only a third of my ride.