Home Chat General Chat

brick sessions

Im currently doing a week of night shifts and was not feeling very tired this morning. Therefore i embarked on my first ever brick session.



I am signed up for the bleinheim and london oly tri this year (my first in tri).



I decided to cycle 13 miles followed by a 4.5 mile run. I have never felt as bad as i did for the first mile of running. I couldnt control my legs at all.

I,m hoping that a few more of these sessions will improve my running off the bike. My big questions are, is there any tactics or advice to make things easier and are the distances i covered too much, too little or right for the tris i am doing.



Yours a very wobbly

Andy

Comments

  • tomroomtomroom Posts: 33
    Don't worry, the first brick session is always the worst and you've got plenty of time before Blenheim. The more you do the easier they get, and there are a few things you can do to make it easier. Whenever you finish a ride do some form of running to activate your muscles; such as running up stairs, glute raises or just a couple of 50m accelerations.



    As far as specific sessions this is what I do and I race over olympic distance but I think this would also work for sprint. I do two brick sessions a week, in one session I ride for 2hrs and then run for 25mins. Over the weeks I build this up the race pace part from 5mins in increments of 2-3mins, rest easy, and try and hit the same splits each week as the distance increases. The other session is off my long ride, so 4hrs bike into 40min run and this session I'm going to build the run up to around 1hr. This way I'm developing my race pace in the short session and strength and endurance in my long session. You may find these bike distances a bit much in your first year but I think the principle of working below and above your race pace in the run is a good one.



    Tom

  • hound doghound dog Posts: 293
    Cant really help you athoyle, but was wondering how you get on training and night shift? I have just started a new job that has week about day/night shift.

    Beginning of the week was ok but come Weds I was wiped out and came down with a flu type bug.Do you train regulary after shift? how does it affect you when you go back to days? Good luck with your tri's.
  • athoyleathoyle Posts: 21
    Thanks for the advice tom.



    Hound dog, working nights and training takes a lot of getting used to. Being a junior doctor it feels like i am continually on nights, i am also always tired, therefore i am used to training whenever i can fit it in. I find training stariaght after a night shift the easiest, followed by a heap of food then im ready for bed.

    I tried training before the shift but it really drained me.



    Good luck with the training.



    I think i may try this brick session thing again tomorrow as my legs have finally stopped complaining.



    Andy
  • LeeCookLeeCook Posts: 22
    I did this exact topic for my dissertation and have quite a bit of material on it. The motor recruitment patterns needed for running are different to that of cycling. The type of muscular contraction is also different, cycling is almost soley concentric whereas running can become more eccentric particularly when running uphill. It therefore takes time for your body to adjust to these changes. Undoubtedly the best way to train your body to make this transition is doing back to back sessions. My study also found that if you back off by 5% for the first three minutes (of an olympic distance run) that you will actually have a faster run overall. This was due to elevated VO2 and blood lactate levels when attempting to set off at normal race pace straight off the bike. However, im not sure it would be faster to back off if your only doing a sprint distance run.
  • hound doghound dog Posts: 293
    Who?...what?...where?......That sounds like a very interesting analysis LeeCook just wish I could understand it[&:]. Any chance of explaining it in laymans terms?

    Thanks Athoyle, Im on days this week yay! so fingers x'd I'll get some sessions in.
  • During my build up to IM NZ I started on bricks quite late on, nothing big, mainly biking on the turbo 1 hour before a 45 min run and found it made the running easier. As for the night shift side of things, I only get them now and again but found that if I went for an early morning swim on the way home from work I went better than if I went from getting up after a full nights sleep.
Sign In or Register to comment.