I need advice. I’m about 6 weeks out from my first full IM (California). I’ve done a dozen tri’s, 2 70.3, and Leadville MTB, so not exactly new to endurance sports.
I have planned to do 2 long brick workouts of 5 hours on the bike followed by 13 miles running. First one this weekend, next weekend would be a long bike Sat and a long run (2:50) Sunday, then a recovery week, then do that all over before taper. My hope was to use these brick workouts to dial in my bike pace. More on that, my FTP is estimated at 222, I’m 155lbs. FTP estimate comes from TR, not field tested. I believe it’s probably high. Planned to hold an IF of .67 for the bike leg of the race. My thought going into the brick workout was to do the first one at .68 and see how the run feels. If all good, maybe try the next one at .68.
The more reading I’m doing, the more I’m getting concerned that this may not be a good approach (doing a brick workout this long).
Am I overthinking this? Advice would be appreciate. Worst case, I do one of these days and if it causes to much recovery time I ditch the last one and just ride/run long the second go around.
I’m assuming 13 miles off the bike will take you 1:40+ to complete in which case yes, that’s too much. I wouldn’t focus on distance but time. I’m 5 weeks out from Kona and I am doing 5:00-5:30 rides with 30min to one hour runs off the bike. Also, the next day I do an easy hour bike and then go and do my 2 hour run. You may want to consider that as an alternative. I would concentrate of nailing your nutrition on these sessions, that’s really critical.
Yes, that would be 2 hours off the bike. So 5 hour bike, 2 hour run. Sunday would be a rest day. Maybe I should do a longer bike, say 5-6 hours, rather then the brick and then do a 2 hour run Sunday?
My alternating weekends are similar to what you describe Saturday is a 4 hour bike with a 1 hour run, Sunday is a long run, 2:50 minutes.
For nutrition, I think I’ve got that down. Sadly, can’t use what IM has on course. Maurten just doesn’t work for me. I’ll be carrying my own bottles and gels, getting 80g of carb and 1000g of electrolyte per hour on the bike. Slightly less on the run as my stomach begins to fall apart…
Yes also this. Bricks are just more running volume, nothing special about them. I would say 2 hour runs off 5 hour bikes is just excessive. A one hour run is ok and the long run off an easy shorter bike is also good. If you do that you get 3 hours of running over two day without destroying yourself.
I’m training for my third full and I’ve used TR for all three so I have those kind of long brick workouts on my schedule too. My next one is 4 hours on the bike followed by a one-hour run.
I like doing a long brick session in the final weeks of training. It gives me a good sense of the effectiveness of my nutrition plan and it generally feels good, as I enjoy running off the bike.
I won’t go beyond 5.5 combined hours because anything more and I’m too wiped out. I also have to resist the temptation to run fast. I find that just doing it once, 4-5 weeks out, is sufficient.
I don’t know what the training benefits are compared to just regular running. I think the main thing is to not do any workout that leaves you so exhausted you sacrifice quality in subsequent workouts.
Yeah, I’m starting to think I’m just going to follow the TR plan. I did a 70.3 last month and had a good race, well the run at least. Just want to have the right pacing for my full. My main goal is to run most of not all of the marathon. We’ll see…
Following the TR plans have always left me well prepared, although I do swim more than TR suggests.
I’m just an N of 1 but my experience is that when I’m really well trained on the swim and bike there’s a danger that I might run too fast in the first hour of the IM. I really have to remind myself to hold back. The long bricks are the same, I want to run fast, so I use them to practice holding back.
Also, FWIW, I run-walk the marathon of an IM. I walk anywhere from 30-60 seconds through each aid station, starting with the first. In both my previous IMs that’s enabled me to run in the 3:30s, roughly thirty minutes slower than my stand-alone marathon would likely be.
That’s really helpful! I said I wanted to be able to run the marathon, but I guess I meant I didn’t want to hit a wall and have to walk miles to the finish. I do plan to walk through the aid stations. I did a marathon last December, was a bit under trained due to injuries so I walked the aid stations. I finished in 3:49, so hoping to be able to finish the IM marathon somewhere under 4:30.
I usually use the MyProCoach training plans and their entire ‘Peak Phase’ in the lead up to the race consists of long ride/long brick sessions. For the 70.3 plans this usually works out to be 2:30-2:45 hour long rides and 1:15-1:30 brick runs. You do longer sessions in the build phase but they’re split Sat/Sun instead (usually with a short 20min brick off the bike on Sat).
I know people don’t recommend long brick runs, but I find it extremely helpful to mimic the actual event in order to dial in pace/nutrition.
I read a post on here, that I can’t find for the life of me now, talking about doing longer rides closer to race TSS (less time than race, higher effort) and then doing a longer(?) run off the bike to check nutrition and pacing for race day. That’s what originally lead me down this rabbit hole. I wish I could find that thread again. I thought I saved it, but maybe the switch to the new platform didn’t keep old saved posts?