[solo2racer]

I recently started an 80/20 12-week beginner sprint triathlon training plan for bike HR and running pace. Looking ahead through the plan, the first brick training is two weeks prior to my race, and it’s BR4 which consists of 3x bike->run repeats.

Having never done a triathlon before, this seems too big a step with no prior brick training. Is this really how the plan is designed or did the import to Training Peaks miss earlier brick training?

[David Warden]

solo, thanks for using our plans. I’m comfortable with this progression. Don’t think of a brick workout as anything harder than the tempo work done every week prior. In other words, there is nothing inherently more difficult about 30 minutes in Zone 3 on the bike compared to 30 minutes of Zone 3 split between the bike and run.

Our Level 1, 2, and 3 plan have more bricks. For the very beginner plan, this introduction to the first brick is mild. Note that it is not a bike+run brick, it is a run->bike->run->bike->run->bike brick with 3 minutes of rest between every segment.

David

[solo2racer]

Thanks for the quick response.

I went back and looked again and that’s not what my plan says. The instructions don’t say anything about taking 3 minutes between each activity. The pre-activity comments even say:

“Designed to mimic the specific stress of racing, this oscillating brick allows for race-day simulation”

To me, that says treat it like a race transition three times.

But you’ve answered my question which was whether the plan imported correctly into TrainingPeaks. It did work correctly, but the plan may not be suitable for my needs as a beginning triathlete with no prior experience.

[David Warden]

Solo, the description says “Bike 15 minutes Bike Zone 1, 3 x (Run 7 minutes Run Zone 3/3 minutes Run Zone 1 –> Bike 10 minutes Bike Zone 3/3 minutes Bike Zone 1) 5 minutes Bike Zone 1″

The 3 minutes Zone 1 between each segment is supposed to be easy. You’ll have a total of 9 3-minute Zone 1 sessions or 27 minutes of Zone 1 within that 1-hour intense session. This is what gives me confidence that while challenging, the workout is not too hard.

It’s essentially one long interval session, and like all interval sessions, you can perform more work when the intensity is broken up into blocks of stress and rest.

David

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