Another Brick in the Wall, By Greg Pace PACEPerformance

A brick in the wall is a good way to consider each of your workouts.  You are building a wall of fitness and every time we do a workout our fitness will get better, our fatigue will grow and (with recovery) we grow stronger from the fatigue.  Therefore our mantra should be “Fatigue is an opportunity”

So why are bricks so helpful?

A bunch or reasons:

One it is a workout – and workouts make us stronger (within reason and with the proper recovery)

Two – it is race practical. We all do a brick every race.   So the brick should be race specific

Three – Blood flow – when it all gets boiled down – we are servants of blood flow.  Heart rate, stroke volume, oxygen carrying capacity is all about blood flow.  So the third goal of the brick is to get your body use to doing the quick change from blood flow in our bike muscles to blood flow to our running muscles.

We are all owners of these amazing machines (no, not your new speed concept Di2 bike – your body!!).  The more we put ourselves in the position of demanding blood flow from one area to the next, your smart machine, gets very good at making the transition.

We have all felt that heavy leg feeling as we start the run.  The more we challenge our bodies to make the quick change from bike to run the less pooling of blood in those bike muscles and the quicker we get up to our natural (albeit fatigued) run speed.  And we all know the winner of the race is not the fastest – it is the person who slows down the slowest!

Some basic tips – 1) do at least one brick workout per week and do it at a relatively high intensity. This will greatly facilitate adaptation.   2) get your body ready to run even as you are on the bike.  In the last 500meters switch to a lighter gear, stand up and run on the pedals – get that quick turn over while weight bearing on the your feet and legs.

And finally – don’t forget the swim to bike brick – learning how to remove your wet suit quickly is a huge asset.   Create a T1 “system” so it becomes wrought – figure out what to put on when and do it the same way every time.  Remember the swim to bike transition also includes that brutal swim to run to T1 challenge.

Practice makes passable, perfect practice makes perfect – do it right and do it often.

And have fun making and learning from your mistakes!!