my first brick workout experience

Yesterday marked five weeks until my first triathlon, and my training schedule called for my first combo workout: a ride then a run.

So, I prepared for the workout by putting my running shorts, socks and shoes in the garage next to my iPod and a bottle of Gatorade®. I wanted to make as quick a transition as possible, so having everything together seemed like a good idea.

The combo was prescribed as 30 minutes in the saddle before getting 10 minutes hoofing it. I decided to add a bit to both, depending on how I felt, just to see how I'm doing. Turns out, I'm doing pretty well, at least in these two events.

When all was said and done, I put in 40 minutes on the bike, covering 20km before pulling into the driveway and dismounting. Within 60 seconds, I'd slipped out of my bike shoes, shirt, helmet and gloves and was putting on my running stuff. Within two minutes (forever, I know), I'd downed half the bottle of Gatorade and was lurching down the road feeling awfully uncoordinated as I tried to find a pace.

It was a really weird feeling, as if I was taking half steps with each pace. The strange feeling came from the fact I couldn't really feel my thighs at all, at least in comparison to the rest of my leg muscles. And my pace seemed really slow, too.

But I pressed on, and after I'd covered a mile, it felt as though I'd settled into a normal run, albeit the run still seemed like I was crawling. When I finally returned home, my Nike+ iPod showed I'd covered 2.2 miles in just over 17 minutes... these were near eight-minute miles I was putting up after the ride! Talk about a confidence-builder.

And while I thought I'd done a good job stretching after the brick, I found out this morning there was a major muscle group I completely missed: the gluteus maxima (maximi?). Yes, my butt muscles ache today, but it's in a good way.

And my multiple Ironman co-worker assures me this too shall pass. whew!