A Brick and a "real" bike

Today was a great training day with two firsts - my first bike ride outdoors and my first brick workout!

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I put some new slicks on my bike and got it into riding shape after freeing it from its hiding space in my garage. I just never got the chance to take it out until today which turned out to be perfect! The weather was nice and I was off work on-call so I had plenty of free time to hit the trail after waking up. I ended up riding about 35 minutes (6 miles) on Columbia's fabulous MKT trail and the new tires were awesome! Since it was my first time on a "real" bike in many years, I was playing with the gears and just getting used to the feel of it again. I'm a bit of a gear-idiot as my friend Mitch can attest to based on a sad and painful experience in South Dakota in 1999 when I completely lost it over my inability to climb some small, pathetic hills on the Centennial Trail. Then he noticed I was in my "granny gear" (I still don't know what the hell that means) but apparently I was in the worst possible gear for climbing so I was actually making the task damn near impossible. Honestly I haven't learned much since then because I pretty much chucked the whole idea of biking altogether based on that trip.

But anyway, today's ride was nice and it felt good. What didn't feel so good was my first brick (workout with a transition to running after the bike). I've read that it's a killer and they weren't kidding! I had to walk the first 3 minutes or so because my legs just felt so weird, I wasn't even sure if I could have coordinated a run had I wanted to. Then I just pushed myself into it and ran/walked for 2 miles. Towards the end I started feeling much better and I ran the last half-mile and still felt really strong at the end. I also tried my new DeSoto tri shorts for the first time today. My butt didn't hurt during the bike (probably a combo of the quick ride, the shorts, my saddle and some manipulations of my bike seat position) and during the run I didn't have any chafing plus I didn't feel like I was totally exposed the way I do in running shorts. All in all, I think they will be great for race day!!