First Brick of the Season Complete!

First a definition for those readers who might be unfamiliar with the term Brick as it relates to triathlon.

Brick refers to training on two disciplines during the same workout, one after the other with minimal or no interruption in between, just as you would do in a race.

Today marked the first "Brick" in the Year of the Phoenix and it went much better than I could have anticipated. I was thinking that I would be passed out on the floor right now, begging for a quick end but I am not! Woohooo!

Keri and I met at her place and drove onto Reston, VA to ride the Bike course for the Homegrown Triathlon that we are doing together on May 7th. The course is a 6 mile loop of gently rolling hills that you repeat twice for a total distance of 12 miles. Today's workout goals were to learn the bike course, see how "ugly" it is for me to run after a bike right now, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, to enjoy a workout with Keri!

The bike course was a beautiful loop with just enough rolling hills to make some climbs a challenge and the down hills safe but fun! It was great seeing Keri riding her new bike and she is riding better all the time. She is in that "new rider" stage where she still has a profound amount of respect for speed, especially down hills. In this case, the downhills were pretty wide and not very steep so I encouraged her to "Get off her brakes!" and enjoy the ride down.

Pretty quickly the bike ride came to an end and I am happy to say that I still felt like running was a good idea although I had no clue if I could.

I set the watch for 15 minutes and Keri and I headed out to run. BOY DOES IT TAKE ME A LONG TIME TO WARM UP! I didn't feel the "dead legs" that I have felt in transition for other races in the past but then again, I was walking within the first 2 minutes.

Keri stayed right with me and we kept up the intervals of run/walk for the first 10 minutes and then as we were headed back to the car, I asked for Keri's help:

"For the next 4 minutes, no matter how much I bitch, don't let me walk please!"

It helped that it was downhill most of the way back to the car and it REALLY helped that Keri talked to me the entire time, telling me about a documentary that she watched the night before. The 4 minutes passed quickly and the run was over .. almost.

Keri and I walked for about a minute and then I realized that I still felt good so with about 500 yards to the car, I decided to see what I had left. I looked at Keri and said, "Let's bring it home strong!" and we sprinted to the car.

12 mile bike: 58 minutes followed by a 15 minute jog

FIRST BRICK of the season in IN THE BAG!!

Friends make all the difference! Thanks Keri! What a great weekend!