Brick day

Today I did my weekly brick workout. But before I get to that I should let you know that I've decided to check out www.markallenonline.com for some coaching. Just in case you don't know coach Mark is a six time Ironman world champion. Yes he won the Hawaii ironman six times! Anyway, I'm going to give his off season training plan a go for a few weeks and see how I like it. One thing that I have been reading about is the importance of using your heart rate as a measure of power. My magic number seems to be 140 bpm so for the next few months I'll be working out without going higher than 140 bpm to build a strong aerobic engine. The idea is that I'll get faster over time using the same HR. We'll see how it works.

So back to today's workout. I did a short bike followed by a short run. I'm racing this weekend so I didn't want to go that far. However, I did use a heart rate monitor for today's workout. I did 15 miles in 46 minutes and never let my heart rate get above 140 bpm for more than a few seconds. I'm not sure how that effected my bike but I'll keep track of my times and speeds while never getting my HR above 140 bpm. When I got off the bike and started my run I actually had to pick up the pace at first to get my HR up to 140 bpm. I did the 4.1 mile run in 31 minutes and my average HR was 139 bpm. That is a 7:33 minute mile. When I finished I felt great so maybe there really is something to HR training.

Have a good day!