February 23, 2010

Today was my favorite workout--I think ever. We did 5 sets of bricks, the first 4 of which consisted of a 9-minute spin pyramid followed by an 800 on the track. That 9-minute pyramid consisted of 3 minutes steady (level 15 for me), then 3 minutes climbing (level 16 for me), then again 3 minutes steady (back to level 15 for me). We did 5 minutes steady before the final 800, which I think of as our "bonus" since I swear Scott had said that we were doing only 4 800s. Don't know what we did to earn/deserve this 5th. On the run we were supposed to keep our heart rates somewhere south of where they actually soared. I'm still not sure of the math or the exact desired number. I was always just about the last out of the spin room since I have yet to put speed laces on my new racing flats (I suck at transitions anyway), but that just gave me incentive to run faster once I hit the track. I did my 800s in 3:09, 3:03, 3:02, 2:59, 2:56.

After the bricks we were to run an additional mile and a half. Bobby and I ran a mile on the track together and then finished up with another 2.7 or so side-by-side on treadmills. Until today, I'd had no idea how killer he is on the bike. His cadence was so crazy high, I thought he couldn't have had much resistance, but it turns out he had more on than I did. He's been cycling outdoors at least twice a month--not that that explains it. It was fun to actually run and talk with someone and avoid the ipod/nanopod thing.

I liked this brick session because it was challenging but also because I've so rarely had any opportunity to do bricks. I did a brick only once last summer--with FTER in Central Park's northern hills. Prior to that, I'd only done bricks twice the summer before that. So three lifetime. One of the sorry consequences of not being on a team is that you have no one to watch your bike while you go run, which makes brick work a little challenging, which makes triathlon training a little challenging, which makes excelling at triathlons a little challenging. . . You see where I'm going with this. I'm just feeling very grateful to be on a team as fun and hardcore as Full Throttle, even if it means occasionally having to contend with a surprise rogue 800.