and a little extra motivation:
1. Little Ring/Big Ring Brick — This is a bike-run brick.
Warm Up: Begin on the bike trainer by warming up with 15 to 20 minutes, starting with easy spinning, and building to a comfortable, steady effort.
Bike Set: Choose a gearing using your small chain ring that increases your heart rate to about 85-90% LTHR and puts your cadence at 90-95rpm. Additionally, choose a gearing using your large chain ring that keeps your heart rate the same, however your cadence will change to 75-80 rpm. Do 3x(5 minutes Little Ring/5 minutes Big Ring) on 2 minutes of recovery spinning in between the 10 minute intervals.
Run Set: Run on a treadmill for 20 minutes at a easy pace (~80-85% of LTHR). Keep your cadence quick and your form proud.
2. Duathlon Brick — This is a run-bike-run brick.
Warm-up: Begin with some very easy jogging for about 10 minutes. Just enough to get you moving.
Run Set: 1 mile easy (only slightly faster than your warm up), 1 mile steady (~85-90% of LTHR).
Bike Set: Because you are already warmed up, once on your bike, get right to business: 3x(8 minutes at 85-90% of LTHR/2 minutes of recovery spinning). Keep your cycling cadence high at all times, about 90-95rpm.
Run Set: Run 1 mile, steady (hr @ 90% of LTHR); 1 mile easy, as a long cool down.
3. Hill Climb Brick — This is a bike-run brick
Warm Up: Begin on the bike trainer by warming up with 15 to 20 minutes, starting with easy spinning, and building to a comfortable, steady effort.
Before moving on to the bike set of this workout, set up your bike so that the front wheel is elevated, as if you’re biking uphill. I use a big thick phone book, but anything that will raise your front wheel higher than normal and is stable will do.
Bike Set: Divide the bike into three parts: 1. seated, pedaling with a cadence at about 80rpm for 10 minutes. 2. 5x(1 minute standing @ 70rpm and 1 minute seated @ 80rpm). 3. all seated, pedaling with a cadence at about 80rpm for 10 minutes.
Run Set: Run on a treadmill for 20 minutes at an easy pace (~80-85% of LTHR). Keep your cadence quick and your form proud.
*For an added challenge, put the treadmill at an incline greater than 2% for the first 10 minutes of the run. Remember, keep your heart rate in check (<90% of LTHR)
4. Aqua Run — This is a swim-run brick.
The trick is getting on a treadmill as fast as possible. This will definitely take some time in transition, so be sure to be organized ahead of time. Of course, it’s always an attention getter to see a dude in a Speedo running on a treadmill… For the swim set, you can use any swim workout or master’s session that you prefer, followed by a run. For example, here is a swim workout I like:
Swim Set: Warm up – 200 freestyle swim, 100 kick with kickboard, 200 freestyle swim with pool buoy. Main set – 8×100 on 10 seconds rest, 2×400 on 20 seconds rest.
Run Set: 3x(1 mile, start easy and build to your LTHR). Finish with some easy jogging and walking.
5. The InsaneMan Brick — This is a bike-run brick with extra insanity during the run.
Warm Up: Begin on the bike trainer by warming up with 15 to 20 minutes, starting with easy spinning, and building to a comfortable, steady effort.
Bike Set: 1×10 minutes of steady effort (85-90% LTHR) @ a cadence of 90-95rpm, 1×10 minutes of steady effort (85-90% LTHR) @ a cadence of 70-75rpm, 1×5 minutes of recovery effort, 1×10 minutes as: Four minutes at 90 rpm, Three minutes at 100 rpm, Two minutes at 110 rpm, One minute at 120+ rpm.
Run Set: Run 1 mile easy (get your legs under you), jump off of the treadmill and do 5-15 push-ups, run 1 mile easy (the trick now is to recover your heart rate while still running), jump off of the treadmill again and do 5-15 pull-ups, run 1 mile easy (again, heart rate control!)
