Brick-idy Doo Da

I think I'm finally hitting my stride again, though there are still some wrinkles to iron out before the race in just over three weeks. Last night was the first hard bike-run workout that we've done with the club this year, so I was a bit nervous since most everyone else has been doing them for weeks now. We've just been a bit delayed by the marathon and recovery. The workout was a 16km team time trial on the bike, transition to run, and 500-600 meters all out run. That was followed by an 8km TTT, T2, and the same run again.

I paired up with Craig and Dean, feeling rather nervous that they would ride me into the ground, but fortunately Craig had raced this past Sunday and Dean wasn't feeling overly frisky, so I was able to hang on and actually do my share of pulling for the group. We managed to bring the 16km piece back into transition in under 23 minutes for an average speed of around 42 kph (26 mph). Amazingly, my legs still felt pretty solid and ran well on the little out and back into the woods way above my half iron run pace. I'm kind of excited now to do a longer bike-run workout on Saturday with about 70km-5km on the schedule.

There were, however, a couple of things that need work/practice. First, with new, better designed tri shoes in my stable this year I'm trying the "start with your shoes already attached to the pedals" thing to speed up my T1. In attempting it for the first time last night, my right foot slipped off the top of the shoe and I smashed my shin down into the pedal creating a bit of a nasty cut and bruise which is none too comfortable this morning. I'm certainly going to have to be a bit more careful about that in the future. Second lesson from last night - "take off your helmet when you start running, dummy!" Stupid me went through the transition the first time and totally forgot to take my helmet off before I ran. After realizing the mistake, Rob saw me and asked knowingly, "first transition practice this year?". Maybe I was just subconsciously worried about tripping over my own feet in the trail!