As many of you know, I like to mix up brick workouts and do much, much more than the traditional bike-run brick!
If you’ve never tried a run-bike-run brick before I’d highly recommend including it in your training along with the swim-bike brick I wrote about earlier. The run-bike-run training is great for all triathlon distances from sprint to IRONMAN. Here’s why:
Higher Quality Run Training. By running first you will log a higher quality run rather than always running on tired legs at the end of a bike-run brick.
Reduce the Chance of Injury. I often prescribe this brick format for athletes who tend to get injured during long training runs. During long runs, the repetitive eccentric load is what causes joint and muscle damage. You probably know it well: that stiff, sore leg feeling. Whether you realize it or not, as your legs fatigue during a long run you risk altering your normal gait. This can lead to injury. By splitting the long run in two session within this brick, your legs can rebound during the bike, you can finish the workout with a biomechanically solid run and recover faster.
You’ll Be Tired on the Bike. This is good! By running first you’ll pre-fatigue your legs for the bike. This is beneficial because you’ll need to focus on maintaining good form while cycling. This means activating your glutes (not your quads!) during the bike.
Ultimately run-bike-run training will improve your strength and get you to the starting line with less chance of injury.
If you do give this workout a try, let me know how it goes. Get in touch with me on Facebook or Twitter.
Run-Bike-Run Brick
This workout can be increased up or down in distance depending on the time of year and the proximity to your next race.
For 70.3 races, I’d recommending running a total of 7-15 miles (broken up into 2 runs) and biking between 30-50 miles.
For full distance IRONMAN triathlons you can run between 7-18 miles (broken up into 2 runs) and ride between 30-70 miles.
Try this session once every 3 weeks and intermixed with the other types of brick workouts in your plan. The following example is one of my favorites during the competitive season for 70.3 and Ironman races.
Run 9 miles; Bike 40 miles; Run 4 miles
Run 1: 9 miles
The first run should always be a bit longer than the second run. You want to aim for a total of 40% of your total running time for both runs to be at your 70.3 race pace. In this first segment you can aim for 20% — or approximately 2 miles — to be at your race pace or your half-marathon pace.
Bike: 40 miles
Take no longer than 15 minutes to change into your bike gear and then head out!
Ride 30% — or about 12 miles — at your 70.3 race pace. This can be broken into segments like:
4 x 3 miles or 8 x 1.5 miles
Distribute these evenly within the entire 40 miles.
Run 2: 4 miles
Run 4 miles with 20% — or a little under a mile — at your 70.3 race pace.
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