Bricks

Do you know what "a brick" is? I didn't until I started training for the Danskin Triathlon. A brick is a bicycle ride followed by a run/walk. The name has two meanings. Originally I thought it meant a building block towards the whole sequence of swim, bike, run.... and that is one meaning.... but most people call these workouts bricks because that is how your legs feel when you try to run or walk right after riding your bike.

The Kitsap Tri Babes have met for three bricks so far. These events are really well organized. The routes are marked with pink arrows. There are angels riding along the route in bikes and cars, ready to assist you if you have a problem. You have to sign in and sign out so that they know everyone is accounted for. They even assign you a mentor! It's a really nice, confidence-building atmosphere.


I've done two bricks so far: the 1st and the 3rd, and am getting ready to do another tomorrow morning. Each week gets a little more demanding. The first week was pretty easy, despite needing help from one of the biking angels because I didn't know how to use my gears and actually thought something was wrong with my bike because we were going downhill and I was pedalling and nothing was happening. Yeah, I was in the wrong gear. Go ahead and laugh, you're allowed. I'll laugh with you.

Last week we biked seven miles and ran or walked 1.5 miles. I'm not much of a runner so I usually walk, but I did jog for a little of it. I was really sorry that I missed the previous week when we did six and one because this course was substantially harder. In my defense it was nasty and stormy out the previous week, but I heard that a lot of people attended anyhow. I should have. Live and learn. I was really proud of myself last time because the course started off with a long slope down a hill, which I enjoyed tremendously until I realized that I was going to have to pedal back up that hill and I thought for sure that I'd have to walk the bike. But no. I did have to walk it on paer of the mid section, but I learned a little more about the gearing from that experience, and was able to shift into low and make it back up that hill at the end. I also think that repeating "go" "go" "go" to myself with almost every breath helped. Plus once you get a number of miles away from the starting point, even if you don't pedal back, you still have to get back somehow, and that is a great motivator.


Here's Trixie, the fabulous, hilarious tri-babe mascot in her biking outfit at the first brick.

So far, I'm the only one of us to attend the official tri-babe training sessions. Deb and Karen are training on their own at this stage. I think they'll join us later when the official sessions get challenging enough. Deb biked through about 40 miles of Seabeck the other week with a friend, and is getting ready to do the STP (Seattle to Portland bike) in mid July. Karen just did her own 12 and 2 brick yesterday. So far most of the women attending the regular training sessions are like me, newbies. The word is that the hard bodies start showing up later.