So I've gone and pulled the trigger on my new bike. I got the Felt Z35 with the carbon frame. I slapped some aero bars on it and I was ready to enter the world of triathlon. But maybe I should train a little first. So I'm gonna join a formal tri training group in a couple of weeks, but for now I'm just working out "for free". It is with that in mind that I decided to pull a "brick" today. That's tri-talk for a "B"ike ride + a "R"un + "ick". I didn't invent the word, that's just what it is.

Yesterday at work I was planning what my workout would be for today. We have off for Good Friday, so I was going to "bring Glory to the Lord" by pushing this body he gave me and having a good hard workout. That was the plan.

Well, I had grandious visions of a bike ride going all the way up mopac to wm cannon before my turn-around and then back to 45 before coming home. That would give me 21-ish miles. Heck, I'll even throw in the Veloway and make it close to 25. Then when I got home I was gonna head out for a 10 mile run, also known as "The Costco Loop". Yeah, that's the ticket. Here's what happened.

I had all my gear stashed by the front door so I could head out for my ride, come home and quickly "transition" to my running attire, and then blast out the door. So with cycling shoes, helmet, and some new duds that C just bought for me I was out the door. "HEY!!! Since when did it get so WINDY!!!!!" GAH - this is gonna be a little harder than I thought.

I start my bike ride looping through the neighborhood, and then down escarpment blvd. I get lucky and make the lights at both Davis and Slaughter lanes and commence to powering directly into a headwind for roughly 5 miles of rolling hills. I actually put my hands onto my brand spankin' new aero bars for about a second and then pulled them rapidly back off just before I was about to dive onto the pavement. Perhaps its best to try these out when it's a tad less windy. Finally I come to the end of Escarpment blvd and make my right hand turn onto US Hwy 45.

I don't quite make it up to the posted 70 mph speed limit, but do manage to hold my own against a little bit of traffic. I had the wind helping me a little bit for this stretch. I make my turn-around and now catch the eastbound 45 for some fun. I'm again heading into the wind, not quite keeping up with the traffic blasting past me, and breathing quite heavy. I believe its called "a spot of bother". But using "the big gear" as much as possible I turn up mopac and head over to the Veloway.

I had caught my breath by now, and downed quite a bit of Accelerade, so I was feeling quite peppy on the Veloway. I had just kept my own with 70 mph traffic, I can handle a bike path. Shortly into the ride I catch my first sharp left hand turn and skid the brakes but manage to save it. That brought my heart rate up a little bit more. But not to admit I'm cocky or anything, but it WAS my second time out on the Veloway, so I didn't want to look like a rookie, hence I regrouped and hit the gears again. I'd say about 90 seconds later I zig zag through a couple easy curves and come upon another hard left turn. Again I skid, only this time what slows me down is riding about 3 feet up the embankment to the side of the pavement. I had hit some leaves, yeah, that's my story, it was the leaves, and they made me lose control . . . a little bit. So I'm standing on the little hill, and let one guy go past, looking at him like "What? I'm fine! Carry on." and after he passes I attempt to pedal off this hill. I again spin my tire in the leaves, and this time I fall over like a kid riding without training wheels for the first time. One foot clipped into my left pedal, the other flailing about like one of the Rockettes. Finally I get up, look around to make sure nobody saw me, and pedal cautiously the rest of the way around the Veloway.

Once back on the road, I cross mopac northbound and pick it up back south again. This was a deviation from my original plan, but if I wanted to "live" to see the end of this workout I needed to trim some miles off here, and so I audibled. So heading back south on mopac I am again directly into the wind, and uphill. This reminds me of a story of when my dad went to school as a kid, but I digress. I catch 45 again, and catching the big gear I race my 70 mph carbon rocket up to escarpment blvd for the final stretch home. This time I had the wind at my back for the 5-ish miles and they flew right by. SportTracks says I was hitting over 25 mph during some stretches here, but also says those were my fastest areas of the day. I could have sworn I was close to 70 earlier, so I'll have to calibrate my Garmin. Anyhow, I finally pull into the driveway - I mean the transition area - and take my bike inside for my quick change. Total cycling mileage? 17.42.

Once I have my bike parked, I drag my running shoes over by the stairs to change. Except that I am still in my cycling shoes, and my clips are sliding on the pergo with wobbly legs and I quickly find myself doing the famous "Hamill Camel" and spinning to the floor. Water bottles, sport beans, everything is scattered across the floor and I crash down on the same side I fell on earlier when my training wheels came off. GAH! So sitting on the floor I swap shoes, put on my cap, eat sport beans off the floor, spit out some dog hair, and somehow fish my iPod wire down the back of my jersey and head out the door. I don't think I broke any records for my "transition".

The run wasn't too bad. It also wasn't anywhere near 10 miles. It wasn't anywhere near a 10K either. Let's just call it a 5K and be done with it. My legs weren't too wobbly to start with, probably due to my lengthy transition. (Is a 5 minute transition bad?). So my early mile was around a 7:30 pace. But the fact that I haven't really been able to catch my breath since . . . I started pedaling into the wind about an hour ago, was causing me to back off this pace a little bit. I took a couple of walk breaks in the park, and a couple more on the final leg of my run, and managed to finish the 3.35 miles with an 8:05 pace. My brick was coming to an end.

So that was today's workout. I learned a few things. Aero bars are tricky to balance with. Slick tires don't slow down all that quick. And pedaling with the wind is more fun than pedaling into it. I'll build on these before my next brick.

So this recent marathon was the fifth for my bride and I. For each preceding marathon, spread out across the past 7 years or so, we've adopted the following "recovery program". Stop running for about the next 6 months and then start from scratch in August. I'm quite sure that if you consult with folks "in the know" they'd probably disagree with this approach. I even disagree with it. In fact, even though we didn't run last year's marathon (we volunteered at the finish line) we managed to keep in shape by actually running throughout the year. A new Garmin 305 and iPod nano helped keep to an actual running program.

So this year was going to be different. M plus 6 days, also known as the Saturday after the marathon, C had to go to a class. It was a beautiful crisp morning in Austin, somewhere around 45 - 50 degrees at 8:00 am. I decided to go for a run. My legs were no longer sore, aided by that dip in Barton Springs last Sunday after the run, and a massage, and 6 days of rest. So I felt a nice easy run would be in order. I had never heard about this whole "Don't run for two weeks" thing. So I mapped out a nice 8 mile run on MapMyRun, and headed out the door.

The weather was so great that I wasn't really paying attention to my pace. Eventually I looked down at my 305 and saw I was clipping right along (slightly uphill) at around a 7:30/mi pace. Oh sure, I was breathing a little heavy, but I got quite the adrenaline boost by seeing that pace. NOTE: this is indeed fast for me, as my marathon, a PR, was just over my 8:30/mi training pace. So I continued on, gradually climbing the hilly neighborhood, cresting Convict Hill, and heading out for a nice downhill just past mile 2.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to mile 3, I began to feel a slight knot in the back of my right calf. GAH! What's with that? This is a downhill, its still cool outside, and I'm not even really breathing hard anymore. Why is my calf hurting? So I pulled off around mile 3 and proceeded to do a little stretching to help things out. Then I was back on my way.

I'll admit that when I run, even with my iPod playing, I spend a lot of time "in my head". So it's not really fun to run when I keep thinking "I wonder how bad my calf is gonna get" and "This really sucks". But at mile 4 I decided to take one more "stretch break" and then stick with my route and take the 1 mile loop around the park. There were folks with dogs, some other runners, and it was a great morning to be runnin through the shade from the trees. It was here that I began to "audible" my daily run route.

The exit from the park was across the street from another greenbelt that would eventually lead past the end of my street. So I abandoned any hope of doing 8 today, and proceeded on home. Of course once you fall for the "safety valve" your leg begins to feel better, but by now I was having visions of fresh coff-ay in my head and there was no turning back. I finished off with a run of about 5 1/2 miles with an 8:05 pace and a calf that would preclude me from running again any time soon.

Except that the next day I went down to Austin Fit for our final "group run" and we logged about 2 1/2 miles around Town Lake (Ok - Lady Bird Lake - whatever) and the whole time I was thinking "GAH! - What's with my leg".