Brick

I have 5 weeks until Alcatraz which means I have 4 weekends to do bricks, starting with a bike/run today. I met Michael at 8 a.m. at Peet's Coffee to do a hard ride straight into a tempo run. We went out up San Joaquin Hills Road, took a left down Newport Coast, through Turtle Rock, down Laguna Canyon and up PCH. I wasn't incredibly economical with the ride, because I wanted to hammer all the hills in preparation for San Fran. Total ride was 31 hilly miles averaging 19 m.p.h.

I took about 5 minutes to hang my bike, throw on some running shoes and start off on my run. Drew tagged along with me on roller blades, and carried a water bottle for support. I took a warm up mile down to Back Bay Road and rolled right into my tempo run. The goal was to go a controlled 5 miles at 5:40 pace (desired triathlon and marathon pace). I hit the first three miles dead on at 5:39, 5:38, 5:40, which felt really easy so I dropped the last two miles to 5:33 and 5:25, then cooled down one mile back to the house.

I had a quick bowl of fresh oatmeal and assorted fruit, then darted off to Yogaworks for Power Yoga with Mom and Drew. I used this more for stretching but it still kicked my rear-end. The low point was falling on my face while doing the crow pose. It was still a heck of a workout and a solid training day.