Brickilicious

That's how I describe yesterday's workout. It was amazing. On Friday, I decided that I was gonna work on form in the pool, do my 91 mile loop on the bike and then immediately hit up a 5.2 mile run after the bike. In multisport, a brick workout usually consists of bike-run together.

So after additional reading, I actually kindof figured out how I'm suppose to do the "catch/pull" with my arms during the swim stroke. I decided to really try to focus on this during the swim and just go for a bit. It was amazing as I was busting out 100 yard segments about 10 seconds faster than my usual. Excellent!!

Finished up the swim, and proceeded to get on the bike. I had done this route a couple of weeks ago and with the headwind on the way home it was painful. I wondered how my legs would feel as I put in a fair number of miles this week plus I had a different nutrition plan. Gels and cytomax..There was a nice tailwind going towards Salem. I was spinning away and trying to stay with a decent nutrition plan. I made it to the turn around and didn't feel too bad. My butt didn't hurt too much so I was feeling like this would be a good day. Well, I turned into that headwind and the first mile was fine. After that it was a struggle. I was trying my best to find a gear that was comfortable on my legs but really didn't have any luck. I was slogging through the miles. I could feel my legs fatiguing. I was wonder how the run was going to go. I figured if I was totally dead I would just cut the run short. I finally made it to Wilsonville which starts the nice downhill into Tualatin during the last 5 miles. I just tried to recover the legs but they felt bad. I was dreaming of getting off the bike but had no idea how the run would go.

I got to the parking lot and put the bike in the car. I drank some more Cytomax and took off the cycling jersey and helmet. I got my running shoes on and put on a baseball cap. I clicked my watch and took off. OMG!! I couldn't believe how good my legs felt to run. They completely sucked on the end of the bike but now they felt totally fresh. For some reason, my knees were sore and my right IT band was bugging out of the gate. This was weird as I've never had the bike hurt either of those. I was worried but after about 5 minutes all that went away and I was cruising. I was focused on having a nice efficient stride and being smooth. I was clicking. It was amazing at how good it felt to run. I slowly started to up the pace a little bit. During the last 2 miles or so I really decided to push the pace. I finsished strong.

I got home and punched in the numbers. For the last 4 miles of the run, I averaged roughly 6:30 pace. Frickin amazing. My run is really coming along and now I feel totally confident in being able to kick major ass in the marathon leg of the ironman. I'll definitely have the gauge the first half effort in order to finish strong. The marathon is where I'm gonna put the hurt on.

I'm totally stoked!