8-14-08

300 yd swim......check  getting faster

1 mile run......check  almost able to make a mile running

tonight....bike-run brick and practice transition

some more push and sit ups

1 month and 1 week to go till first Tri!!!

...for the sake of sounding like a total newb.. what's a "brick"?  ...is it related to practice transitions? (I posted a question about transitioning earlier)..   -thnx

It's one of those hard, red, baked clay things used as building blocks for many structures, such as houses, buildings, etc ....

Seriously though, I'm a newb too butI think it means when you train any 2 of the 3 events of a tri back to back.  I believe the poster said he did a brick of bike and run .... or you could brick together swim and run, swim and bike, etc ....

.... if you find bricks difficult to do at first or if you are just beginning, you might try using a bucket for your bricks......     hehehehe

I've not bought or read the Chi Running book, but have read various articles on his site and others and get the general idea of posture and landing mid-foot, etc .... so ....

Today I did a 3.21 mile run (plus 1 additional lap of which ea. lap is a little over 1/4 mile), which is an improvement from last time I ran this past Monday - which is the first time I've ran in about 15 years or so.

Monday could only run 6 laps, walked the 7th, and ran the last 5 for my 12 laps (3.21 miles).

Today ran 13 laps non-stop.  Worked on landing mid-foot, taking smaller but quicker strides, keepong my hips/pelvis level and by spine straight.  It seemed to help my legs not get so tired and feeling like they wanted to cramp - and so far my low back, knees, ankles are feeling fine.

I'm 43, 254 lbs today, and so far only sore muscles - nothing resembling injury yet.

After the run worked abs in the gym, lots of crunchs on one of those big Pilates ball, that thing like a dip bar but you face the other way and left your knees to your chest to work your abs, then got on my knees and used a cable machine to do reverse crunches, put straps on a chin-up bar and held those and did more knee ups.