I’m in the last three months of training for my first HIM (Grand Coulee in Washington FYI) and I am wondering about how to structure my bricks going forward.
I am slowly adding distance to both segments of my bricks as my mileage increases, but was not planning to do a full length brick prior to the event.
Is this madness? I will be doing long runs/bikes in excess of the event distances. I’m not competitive, and am somewhat confident that I can break 6 hours.
Any advice is welcome!
Thanks,
Todd
Personally, nothing wrong with going in excess on the bike, however, the run is where you kill your body. I would go long on the bike and maybe do 1/2-3/4 of the run max. And that would be about 5 weeks out.
But some of the more knowledgeable folks here may give better advice.
By full length brick, do you mean 56/13 or 1.2/56.
Nothing wrong with something like 1.2/56. Certainly can be a confidence builder knowing you can get yourself to the run.
56/13 is way to much (I am sure that some people will disagree, that is just “my opinion”).
My usual bricks are long rides (3.5-5.5 hours) followed by a 20-30 minute run, usually slower than race pace, but I let how I feel dictate the pace. Has worked well for me so far. Use your run workouts to build run speed. And have the focus of the bike workouts be the bike. Use the brick/t-run aspect to get your body used to moving the running muscles right after a lot of biking – frequency is the key here. Better to run 2-3 times per week after every bike workout for a little bit than to attempt one “megabrick” where the reward is only minimally higher and the risk is substantially higher.
Thanks. I was referring to a 56/13 brick. MY plan is to do get up to about 40/7 for about 4 weeks out. I’m glad to hear on first glance that I’m not being too conservative on my plan, though I will start to add more mini bricks as that makes a lot of sense to me!
Thanks again.
-Todd
I would get up to a 5:30-6-hour ride with a 20-minute transition run. There is no need to go above 20-40 minutes for a transition run. You will only injury yourself or sacrifice the workouts you need to do the rest of the week.
You can also be creative and do broken bricks. Example: Bike 15-minutes / Run 1 hour / bike 15-minutes / Run 45-minutes / bike 15-minutes / run 30-minutes.
Or run for 30-minutes / bike 4-hours / run another 30-minutes.
Or run for 30-minutes / bike 4-hours / run another 30-minutes.
These are a lot more fun than you might suspect.
I would say to keep the bike at least as long as your 1/2 IM bike, and probably longer. 60/5 makes more sense to me than 40/7.
The key is to understand what you are trying to get out of these workouts:
getting your body used to running after a long, draining bike workout.
mentally preparing yourself to be confident in your ability to run after biking and swimming hard.
THEREFORE, a longer bike at including some draining intervals @ race pace (such as a 4 hour bike with 2 x 45’ in Z3 – approaching 1/2 IM race pace) followed by run that is long enough that you have to get into a pace (5K+) but still short enough (<10K) that you won’t miss having water stops/aid stations (unless you plan to do like loops near your house or run on a track or a treadmill where you can have fluids/nutrients nearby).
Don’t forget that during the race, there will be aid stations on the run, something that you may likely not have during your own workouts. A track is a great place to do your brick run because it allows you to have a water bottle close by, and it also gives you honest, real-time feedback on run speed following the bike. You can also do 400’s at different HR/pace to experiment.
But don’t worry about needing to run A LOT off the bike. Smartasscoach and a lot of the other good coaches around here can offer even better advice.
for that race course do a 3 hr uphill ride on a pothole filled road, then find a gravel road to do a 1 hour run. also you can make monetary contributions to the race director who needs to charge 155 to pay for his new car.
Doing a ride the duration you expect your entire race to take will pay dividends, and you won’t risk injury the same as you would when running long. That’s why I advocate a 6-hour ride with a 20-minute transition run. That way your 1/2 IM will not be the longest workout you’ve ever had. The thing that improved my 1/2 IM times the most, was training for a full IM, where a 56-mile bike ride did not seem like all that much.
I never do full length bricks. Ever. I’ll do enough of a run after any ride to get to where I feel “normal” running, and that’s enough. For me, the function of a brick is just to get used to going through that big-leg/feet-moving-in-circles feeling that you have coming off the bike. Once that’s done, you’re just running. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but I prefer to do any runs of appreciable distance just as stand-alone runs (and they can certainly be another workout on the same day – I’ve done 3-a-day’s before).
My views on tri training are way out of the mainsteam so take what I say with a grain of salt but I don’t see any reason to do a full length brick when training for a HIM. It is true that the hardest part of the one HIM I did was getting off the bike and starting the run. There were only 2 things that could have helped with that and riding 56 miles then running 13 in training was not one of them.
One would have been to do more bike training so I could have used less energy on the bike (and be more disciplined about pacing). The second would have been to do more short runs after long rides to a) find out I needed more of #1 and b) to get used to feeling like poop for the first mile or so.
Continuing on for a training run after a long bike for another 10 miles would not have done anything to help me IMHO. The time would have been better spent elsewhere plus if I had actually tried a full bike/run brick I probably never would have started the race 
I’m no expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last nite… my $0.02:
You either wanna do short Transition runs after whatever distance bike ride yer doing (I’ve done T-runs off of 12m TT’s, up to 50m long rides) - OR - you want to do a relatively short and easy bike ride, followed by a long(er) steady run.
Even Francois has learned that going big on the bike AND run part of a brick isn’t such a hot idea.
Once in a while I do the ‘other’ variety, where I do a relatively short and easy bike ride, then transition into a longer steady run. I think the ‘standard’ method of longer bike/short run is best for me. YMMV.
One of my faves is the 12m TT/2-3m T-run, both done HARD. It’s like the fun (non-swimming) part of a Sprint tri race, and you can do the whole thing in under an hour, and since it’s short, you only need one easy day of recovery before doing another hard workout. Best of luck!!
I would agree with rappster, however may I suggest you do a triple brick: 3x(20 + 4) if you want to cover the distance, it will be easier on the body and it will be the ultimate test on pace and nutrition for a 1/2IM. You can start by building from one to two to three bricks. Two and Three weeks out you can do your long brick 60/7-10.
We have to always remember that the longer a run is off the bike, the harder it is on your body. Did a 45 mile ride followed almost immediately by a 7-mile run on Sunday and am much more tired today than after 30-40 minute runs following 60-70 mile rides. The runs beat you up, man!
Seriously, though, as others have posted, a 56/13 is totally unnecessary unless you really want to feel trashed for a while…
Hello justtwitchin’,
It all depends on how you build up your base. Some athletes ‘like myself’ like to pour on the volume as in doing 70 bike 15 run and up bricks. It all depends on your base and what your body can handle. If you have a good run background, then adding miles may not be detrimental to you. But if you are frequently injured in running or prone to injury, then build slowly.
The one area I can recommend is to throw nice numbers up for the bike, since the stress is less on the body.
Jimmy
Think about the goal of a brick. Why do you do it? To practice running with ‘bike legs’, right?
Ride hard until your legs are tired (or tired enought to negatively affect your running), do a fast transition, then run until you no longer waddle like a duck. Stop shortly after there. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
EXCELLENT advice. And described using the KISS method, my favorite one 
And how! Good job JoB.
Well, I see that you do remember my signature!