Quick Brick

I decided to take Wednesday as a rest day. I am supposed to be tapering, after all. My legs were a little tired after running Monday night and Tuesday morning and Wednesday off was exactly what they needed. Robert gave us a more specific workout for the brick this morning, but I went off the rough estimates of that workout and made my own.

I decided that I'd just really take it easy today. Not push myself on the bike. The difference between 15 MPH and 14 MPH really isn't that much in the scheme of things and I want to keep my legs moving, but also fresh for Sunday. Mostly what I worried about on the bike was using my new water cage. Since one of mine fell off in San Francisco and I got a new cage last Sunday, I wanted to make sure I was comfortable using it before the race. In the interest of nothing new on race day and all that. I know I'll need both water bottles for the race and this new one seems to actually be easier to get the bottle in and out than the old one.

I got off my bike after doing not quite two full loops of the Park. I was just going by the time (45-50 minutes) rather than miles, which was actually a nice change. I wish I could just stop riding after 1:30:00 on Sunday! I got off the bike and changed shoes as quickly as possible. And then started running.

I felt like I was going really slowly. But, I told myself to just keep swinging my arms and my legs would keep moving. It's crazy how such a small thing can be so helpful. I knew that the run for today wasn't very long, so I just wanted to concentrate on keeping myself moving on tired legs off the bike. It was easier than I had thought it would be.

Part of what motivated me was that when I made the turn to go back down the east side of the Park, there were two or three girls behind me who just kept talking about what they were going to do on Sunday (at the race) and this that and the other thing. I sort of wanted to turn around and punch one of them since they were really annoying, but instead I just concentrated on my running and staying ahead of them. It would have been more annoying to be passed by them!

They actually stopped running on the 72nd Street transverse near the fountain. They're part of another tri club that does their brick workouts near where we do them. I have to say that in that moment, I was really glad that Robert makes us run the finish of the race. It's probably about another half-mile from where they stopped to the actual finish line and I can imagine that since I'm all prepared for that, that I have a slight edge over them mentally. And this is all a mental sport sometimes, right?

Maybe it was good those annoying girls were on my tail since it turned out to be a pretty good (short) run for me! I was a little worried after my slow pace on Monday, but this seems back to normal!

Biking
Time: 49:03
Distance: 11.65 miles (14.70 total)
Pace: 14.25 MPH

Running
Time: 24:07
Distance: 2.60 miles
Pace: 9:16/mile