This may come as a surprise to you; brick is actually a term used for a session with two back to back disciplines without rest. Of course it is. Quite self explanatory if you think about it.
My programmed brick was a 90 minute bike ride, followed by a 10 minute run.
So let me tell you the purpose and what the focus was here. The purpose is to prepare you for the workload that you experience in triathlon. I have been developing each discipline individually, which makes sense. You would see this in most sports that require multiple skills.
So I now needed to experience what it would feel like combining two and eventually all three disciplines. By increasing the amount of brick sessions, I should be able to develop technique and stamina to reduce the jelly legs on the run.
I had also never had a go at transitions. If you watch any race on telly, these are seamless and rehearsed so that all gear is ready and there's no wasted time.
My go... So after sitting on a bike for 90 minutes, not cruising but also not overly pushing it, reaching approximately 25km, I jumped off the bike.. I COULD NOT FEEL MY TOES. The blood had been restricted by my seating position as well as a slight chill in the air. I flung my bike in the house... I was almost certain that running for 10 minutes I would wet myself so I took a quick trip to the toilet. I am aware that this is not exactly a quick transition and I would just have to hold it in the race. I have heard that it is not uncommon for endurance athletes to just go... bike is the easiest apparently!
TIP FOR TRANSITION
A friend of a friend has blindly made such progress in the sport, he's advanced to the World Championships to compete in the Triathlon Sprint in Canada. This chap is unreal. He never intended to do so. He had a 'may-as-well attitude' when his talent was recognised after placing high or winning qualifiers of his age category. It's very humbling to see people who are modest but you know they definitely have a hard-work attitude.
I had a chat with him and he shared some insights with me. Something that stuck with me, mainly because it resonated with my job, involving movement preparation to be ready. He said to try to mimic the pattern of how to use your legs in the last part of each discipline, ready for the next. So you may have been pedaling in a more challenging gear, cruising on a flat, so then the advice given was to try to move your legs slightly quicker to how you were going to start the pace of the run.
He also said to get a good wetsuit that had buoyancy so this saved energy in the legs. Bum drifts up and some timely kicks will have you cutting through the water.
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