Brick Workout for Triathlon Training

"The key to triathlon workout is what we call the brick, and that's short for, well I don't know if it's short, but it's some kind of an amalgam of bike-run, and I guess another way to look at it is a brick, building a piece of that foundation but what a brick is is you do a bike workout, and you immediately hop off and you run. And this should be done once or twice a week. And other than really, in the peaking process, only one aspect of it should be done real intensely. So if you do a real hard bike ride, you might come off the bike and start off at a brisk temp on the run, but then settle into an endurance pace. If you do a long endurance bike ride where the intensity is really low, that's a great one to come off the bike and do a real intense run. But once or twice a week the brick, that's the key to triathlon. It's a very different motion, being bent over and riding along on the bike, and then having to stand upright and get the legs going. One key thing, the cadence is about the same. An efficient runner should have about the same cadence as an efficient cyclist, around 90. So when you get off the bike, start with a little bit of short strides. As you get going, you can lengthen your stride and emphasize relaxing and getting into a smooth efficient cadence."