Brick, brick, brick

I travel quite a bit in my job. Sometimes I will go to a plant and find they have facilities where I can stick with my normal routine and run at lunch and the ride later that evening. But sometimes that just doesn't seem to work out. Last week was one of those weeks. I'm just one of those people who really does not like to get out of bed before dawn to workout, race yes, train no. As a result, I take advantage of those weeks to do some bricks. I did a reverse brick (run- bike), and standard brick (bike-run) using a hilly out and back course on road near the hotel and a ride on the exercise bike in the hotel. Then I threw in a decathlon brick (run-bike-run) on the machines. Once I got back home I kept my brick week going by doing some biking in the morning then doing a Run-swim brick about an hour later.

Obviously the run-Bike and run-bike -run mimic what you experience in a race and pays direct dividends but the reverse brick is a great opportunity to get your legs used to pacing while your are tired and training for that late race biking. But the one I enjoy the most the run-swim, I think pays a ton of dividend. Normally during the swim you are fresh, but with one of these brick you enter the water tired and it forces you to concentrate on form and staying smooth and getting used to the later stages of a HIM or IM swim.

Each night a good water bottle of EFS during the middle of the workout and a waterbottle of UltraGen with in 30 min of the end and my legs feel great the next morning. Stay flexible, stay thirsty, and have fun.

Recharging my batteries

Most triathletes are type A folks who have a very hard time actually taking a break and "gasp" taking a few weeks off training, paticularly in the middle of reacing season. But this was exactly what I managed to do for a couple of weeks. The family and I recently took our first triathlon or marathon free vacation in 4 years. Now to be honest the family hasn't complained too much getting to hit Panama City Beach Florida, Disney World, The Grand Canyon and Phoniex, London, Scottland, and Wales, and the best trip ever two weeks on the Big Island of Hawaii. In Hawaii we joined a vacation club and periodically they require us to sit thru another sales presentation but then give us a 4-5 day vacation for free for the trouble. So the reward for sitting thru that painful 90 min was 4 days in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Well we decided to stay a bit longer and booked a few extra resorts. But the wife made it clear she didn't want the luggage to smell like my gym bag so this was going to be a workout free 2 weeks. Well given the two month leading up to this vacation with a nasty bike wreck, missed training due to food poisoning, and work trips, and even the Revolution double at Quazzy, I actually figured a few weeks off wouldn't be a terrible thing. Well I did manage to get quite a bit of swimming in as the boys lived at the beach each afternoon, and on a couple of great tours. But I also got to swim wiith and ride a Sea Lion, then a few days later do the same with a dolfin. We went horseback riding and climbed about 3000 vertical feet into the Serra Madres above Puerto Vallarta, took a jeep tour thru the Sierra Madres, went snorkling on two islands Mariatas and Caletas, where we saw a few huge manta Rays, many cool fish, and an Zebra Moray Eel. One of our resorts had a water park and each one had some amazing pools, and every where we went there was some amazingly good food. I managed to gain about 6-7 pounds and give myself a black eye body surfing when a wave body slammed me into the rocks. We also got to hit the PV zoo where you actually get to feed the animals, (Vegitarians only) and got to hold and play with a Tiger and Lion cub. A something most people will never be able to say my Tiger cub chomped on my arm. No blood but the bruise complete with fange marks was a pretty unique sovenier.

While I can say my fitness isn't at the top level it was, my chronic aches and pains seem to have disappeared and mentally I feel refreshed. So I got to knock out a bunch of items on my bucket list, and recharge my batteries. I highly recommend it! And if you need a place to stay, I now have a timeshare in Puerto Vallarta. Cheers!