Beneath the trees near the track

Up until now the majority of my weekday brick workouts have been done at home.  I’d be on my trainer for the bike portion, and then just simply run outside for the run piece.  Quick, and efficient. 

However, there are some disadvantages to that setup.  First, my run’s would invariably include some little hills which would make it harder to determine what my actual pace was on that day at a specific heart rate.  Further, being indoors (with a fan), actually made the ride easier…easier than say, being out in 85*F weather with no fan.

image Which…brings us to this evening.

IMGP4572

The best of both worlds, a brick workout combined with a track workout.  Allowing for cleaner heart rate pacing on the run, and also apparently giving me some very solid heat and humidity acclimation.  You don’t realize how hot and humid it is outside during a normal workout as you’re moving somewhere and getting the cooling effect.  Not.so.much.today.

So with that, I began Coach Alan’s little prescription of fun for the day.

IMGP4573I had placed my workout in a plastic sheet protector, and then just slid it down my aerobars.  That kept it both dry from my pouring sweat, but also held it on my bike – a rubber band helps to secure it in place.  And had the thunderclouds above decided to dump…then it would have at least kept that piece of the setup dry.

The workout was essentially a 10 minute warm up, followed by a brief higher cadence portion up to 125RPM, and then went into 5 minute chunks each of higher zone stuff ending in Z4B.  Good times.

image After just 32 minutes, I had completed watering the ground with sweat and it was time to move on.

IMGP4574 IMGP4576 On to the run…

The nice part about doing the brick at the track is that you certainly don’t have to go far to start running.  A few moments later I tossed my water bottle to the side near the start line and began the good times.

Oh…btw, notice those little shiny looking things near my water bottle:

IMGP4590 Uhh…yeah, they’d be bullet casings.

IMGP4591Cute.

Moving along…

IMGP4588 The workout was fairly straight forward, with sets building where the HR got progressively harder and harder, yet because of fatigue the overall pacing stayed roughly constant throughout the workout.  My overall pacing was a bit slower for today, but that’s all cool as it’s the final build week in a three week set.

image It’s funny that even for a theoretically ‘level’ track, you can actually see about a 8 or so foot altitude change on each lap.  There’s a brief jogging easy lap at about the 20 minute marker before the next major sets.  And each yellow line indicates a new set.  The 3600M set was one of the more ‘enjoyable’ ones (2.25 miles).

However, as always, nothing sucks as much as the 200’s at the end.  Normally the 32 second 200’s wouldn’t have been bad given the relatively tame previous few sets, but I really had to go to the bathroom badly – and not the kind where you can easily pull off the side of the track.  So doing a bunch of all out give it all you’ve got sprints…umm, you have to be careful.

Anyway.. soon enough I had 7.25 miles in the bank and was good to go.  Well, that and I was completely socked.  Check out my shirt which I hung up briefly, it’s actually made a puddle below on the ground.

IMGP4592 So with that, I leave you with a picture of our bikes, under a tree…

IMGP4583

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13 Comments

  1. The sight of your bikes on trainers outside under a tree amuses me greatly. Seems just so…wrong.

  2. Hey, you need to get out from under those trees and really appreciate the sun! Also, it will keep the birds from pooping on you.

    Great workout! I ride on my trainer on my drive way a lot and then go for a run. I am jealous of your local school track that has a red surface. My school track is black and man was it friggin hot yesterday at 12:30 pm.

  3. Did anyone see you? Cause I bet they thought you were CRAZY!

  4. is that W-L HS? bullet casings? ps. the girl and i have the same bike…

  5. The humidity has been brutal lately. I just went for a run this morning and my HR was a bit off due to the excessive conditions. I guess its just time to accept that the summer is here and this is the way its gonna be for the next few months.

  6. Washington lee HS has an open bathroom most of the time nextime do the workout there
    ready for ITU race

  7. I think the casings may have been from a starter pistol. Atleast that’s what I would tell myself. I’ve been tempted to move the trainer to a track to do this kind of workout. Will have to give it a try now. Good work.

  8. Brutal. Outside trainer work is straight up brutal. Way to hammer it out though.

  9. Insane! 100% humidity! ICK! I’m so glad MN is in a “cool” spell right not with the jet stream staying south of us….

    Way to get ‘er done!

  10. Wow, that is a beautiful track! How come all the public access ones around me are hard ugly asphalt? :-(

    Those bullet casings are quite disconcerting, though. Did you bring them or do you think someone was doing target practice at the track?

  11. Ewww to the humidity!

    I would also tell myself those were starter pistol casings…

  12. Yikes. Your lowest HR in that set exceeds the highest I have ever recorded.

  13. I’ve seen the same altitude changes on our track- I find it hard to believe it’s accurate. Any suggestions on how it can happen?