Nice to Suffer by Choice Again ... BRICK TRAINING!!

I should get a shirt that says, "Yeah, I'm new."

I've registered for a duathlon in February.  It'll be my first.  One cool thing about just getting into this healthier lifestyle is all of these new experiences!

To prepare for the new experience I need a new training routine.  Brick training is what all of the cool duathletes do.  I researched and read and followed the suggestion that to begin just complete a one mile jog after each bike ride.  No problem...I thought.

Yesterday I did a short ride, about 16 miles, but I hammered it pretty good.  As soon as I finished I jumped off the bike, swapped the riding shoes for running shoes, threw off my gloves, and after being reminded, removed my helmet for a 1 mile run.

It killed me.  Now I had already gone for a short, slow jog that morning followed by about thirty minutes of circuit training at the gym, but that's not unusual for me.  This was going to be a lot harder than I thought!

Today I went on an easy, but longer, ride with my cousin, who is just getting into riding.  All told I rode almost 28 miles, but at a much slower pace than normal.  I did the same run afterwards, remembering to remove my helmet without a prompt today.  This time the mile was 8:22, which isn't fast, but all things considered but hard enough.  (Yesterday's mile was about 10 minutes, I accidentally stopped the watch for about 400 feet.)  I certainly wasn't laying it out for the run today, just trying to hold a certain exertion level.  I'm happy with how I made myself suffer.

So now I have a race day goal.  Here's the race:  2 mile run, 17 mile ride, 2 mile run.

First run:  14 minutes
Ride:  45 minutes
Second run:  14 minutes
Transition totals:  1 minute ???

Total time:  1:14

The trick will be to NOT run the first two miles fast.  The first two miles in fourteen minutes is very attainable, not much of a problem.  The second two will be the tough part!  I'm a stronger rider than I am a runner, and if I can beat my goal, it'll probably happen on the bike.

Anyhow, it's good to be done suffering from illness and be back to suffering under by my own intentions.