# Brick Runs - How Fast? How Long? How Often? | Ep 492

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 5 Jun 2024, 14 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/87114067/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-4-23%2F378520833-44100-2-f16ca738b9841.mp3

Brick runs are a hot-topic among most triathletes. There's an assumption that you need to be running for a long time and / or at a high intensity once you're off the bike in a training ride. Not only is that not necessary, but it's most likely putting you at a hugely increased risk of injury for no added training benefit. But more importantly - it completely misses the most important aspect of the brick run. In this video I talk you through the exact, proven brick run training protocol we prescribe for our athletes and how to incorporate it into your own training. Frequency, pace, intensity, duration - I'll walk you through it all to ensure you're as prepared as possible to run off the bike in your IRONMAN or 70.3. * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:03] Hello and welcome to the Oxygenating Podcast.
[0:05] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:08] and hydration.com. You can personalise your
[0:11] fuelling and hydration strategy so you perform your best with
[0:14] 15% off your first order of electrolytes and carbohydrate
[0:18] fuel. Decode Oxygen 24 at Precision
[0:21] Fuel and hydration.com Welcome to the show, everybody.
[0:24] I'm your host coach, Rob Wilby and.
[0:26] Every week we. Bring you an episode of this
[0:28] podcast to help motivate and inspire you for your triathlon
[0:32] goals for this season. Listen a couple of quick things
[0:35] you could do for us before we jump into today's episode.
[0:38] If you do like this episode, please consider following us on
[0:41] Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And also if you're watching on
[0:45] YouTube, if you could like and subscribe, that would really
[0:48] help out the growth of the show. It helps the show get shown to
[0:51] more people by the. Algorithm.
[0:53] On on the podcast players and on YouTube.
[0:55] So we'd really, really appreciate that.
[0:58] And secondly, if you're looking for help and advice with your.
[1:00] Triathlon training. Please consider getting in touch
[1:03] with us. You can read all about what we
[1:05] offer at Team Oxygen. Addict.com.
[1:07] And then you can e-mail us at Help at Oxygen Addict.
[1:10] Dot com. Or there's a link in the show
[1:12] notes to book a call with me or one of the coaching team.
[1:15] We can discuss how we can best help you out with your triathlon
[1:19] goals for this season. On this episode of the podcast,
[1:23] I'm going to be talking about how you can get yourself into
[1:26] great shape to run really well off the bike and perform really
[1:30] well in your upcoming races, but it might not be the advice that
[1:34] you think you're going to get. OK, so let's jump right into
[1:38] this. It's really common when an
[1:41] athlete who's new to triathlon comes to me for coaching.
[1:43] They'll come to me and they'll say, right?
[1:45] I've read all about these sessions called brick runs.
[1:48] It's going to involve running really hard off the bike, biking
[1:51] really hard, and then going for a really hard run and have been
[1:54] told they're absolutely hideous. And I can't wait for you to
[1:57] smash me with these sessions. Coach and I always replied to
[2:00] the athlete, right, OK, hang on. Let's take a step back here.
[2:03] Let's work out what we really want from a coaching point of
[2:07] view. I don't want any of my athletes
[2:09] experiencing anything approaching what they'd consider
[2:13] being smashed or having a hideous experience in training.
[2:17] What we want in our training sessions is the kind of session
[2:20] that's going to replicate what you're going to experience on
[2:22] race day. So that's the first thing I want
[2:25] our athletes taking in. We're going to approach running
[2:28] off the bike in a way that mimics the experience you're
[2:33] going to have on race day if we get things right.
[2:36] So there's no question that running after cycling straight
[2:40] away is going to be a very strange feeling the first time
[2:44] that you do it. But with the correct sessions
[2:46] and the correct training, it might not always be that way.
[2:50] And in fact, hopefully it won't always be that way.
[2:53] After a few minutes you'll find you can have a really effective
[2:56] and good run off the bike without ever having to
[2:59] experience the kind of session that people talk about where you
[3:03] end up destroyed. So first up, let's talk about
[3:06] brick runs, what they are and what's the purpose of them.
[3:09] Obviously in a triathlon or duathlon, you're going to have
[3:12] to come into transition after a bike leg park your bike, bike
[3:16] shoes off, run shoes on and get going as quickly as possible.
[3:20] And it's no surprise that your legs feel quite strange when you
[3:25] start to run straight after having done a bike session.
[3:28] So the key thing that I want people taking away from this, if
[3:33] we can train you mentally to what to expect here physically,
[3:37] it's going to be much easier to take what's going to happen.
[3:41] O this is the first thing. The purpose of the brick run
[3:43] session is much more mental than it is physical, especially in
[3:48] the early days. And we can typically expect our
[3:51] legs to feel very tired, very wobbly.
[3:54] Sometimes people experience the sensation of thinking there's no
[3:58] way I'm going to be able to run having just bike like this.
[4:01] There's no way it's going to be possible.
[4:03] The purpose of the brick session is to allow those mental
[4:07] thoughts to happen, to have those thoughts of ohh, my legs
[4:11] feel absolutely terrible, but to counter those with other
[4:14] thoughts. So you gradually tell yourself
[4:17] there is a way through this. I've experienced this before.
[4:21] I know my legs will come back and, and typically in two to
[4:25] four minutes of any run off the bike, you'll find that your legs
[4:29] go back to feeling normal. Now that's the good news.
[4:31] The bad news is that two to four minutes can feel an awfully long
[4:35] time, especially in training. So that's the purpose of us
[4:38] doing these brick runs. It's so that mentally, first and
[4:42] foremost, we experience that feeling of really strange,
[4:46] uncomfortable, tired legs. But then we experience the the
[4:50] mental negotiation with that voice in our head saying you're
[4:53] not going to be able to do this, this feels horrible.
[4:56] You've got to negotiate back and say, I know this feeling is
[4:59] going to end soon. I know it only lasts a few
[5:02] minutes. I've got practise doing this in
[5:04] training where my legs have come back, my legs will come back to
[5:07] me and at that point I'm in a position to have a really,
[5:10] really good run. So that's the first thing I want
[5:13] you to expect. I expected to feel slightly
[5:15] weird and strange, but expect that you're going to get through
[5:19] it and know that the purpose of it is as much mental as it is
[5:23] physical in terms of getting you ready for the sensation and
[5:27] knowing that you're going to get through it.
[5:29] Because lots of cases of athletes who get off the bike,
[5:32] start to run and convince themselves that they're just not
[5:35] going to be able to do it today and stop on race day.
[5:38] They have a walk. They let that voice in their
[5:40] head control them. That's saying to them, you just
[5:43] can't do this. So I don't want that for you.
[5:46] I want you to experience, well, you're going to experience the
[5:49] sensation regardless, but I want you to have this other side of
[5:53] the conversation ready to go so that you know you're going to be
[5:56] alright in two to four minutes time and you know you're going
[5:59] to be able to run well off the bike.
[6:01] OK, so let's talk about what brick sessions are actually
[6:05] going to look like. With our athletes, typically we
[6:08] look at introducing brick runs about six weeks before our first
[6:13] big triathlon and duathlon of the season.
[6:15] It's about six weeks out. The first brick run session is
[6:19] nothing more than just experiencing that feeling either
[6:23] for the first time or for the first time this year.
[6:25] Typically it's 10 minutes long. It doesn't matter how fast or
[6:29] slow you run. I ask athletes to make it quite
[6:32] slow and steady and it's all about that mental negotiation.
[6:36] So just 10 minutes off the bike and easy pace and then we'll
[6:39] gradually build up. We'll go to 15 minutes the week
[6:42] after and again, 15 minutes tends to be the point where for
[6:47] two to four minutes you feel awful.
[6:49] And then that's 10 decent minutes of running where you
[6:51] feel really confident and you come back full of the knowledge
[6:56] that you are going to be able to run well off the bike.
[6:59] Now from that point forward, you can mentally be quite confident
[7:04] that this is going to be your experience every time.
[7:06] And we can start to increase the duration of some of these runs
[7:11] and the purpose becomes more physical than mental at this
[7:14] point. You're going to know what to
[7:16] expect. So let's start to increase the
[7:18] duration. So what does that look like?
[7:20] Typically for our Sprint and Olympic distance athletes, I
[7:25] won't have them run more than 15 or 20 minutes off the bike.
[7:29] And as race day approaches, certainly with athletes who are
[7:34] more concerned with a race event, who want to go faster,
[7:37] who wants to perform closer to their and their ultimate racing
[7:41] ability, if you like, will gradually increase the pace of
[7:44] these to more and more closely match what race they pace is
[7:47] going to look like for that athlete.
[7:49] But in the early days, like I've said, the first couple of these
[7:52] are going to be just really easy runs off the bike.
[7:57] For 70.3 athletes, we're going to extend this to a maximum
[8:02] length of 45 minutes. And the same for Ironman
[8:05] athletes. We're going to extend it to a
[8:07] maximum length of 45 minutes off the bike.
[8:10] The reason for this is the kind of fatigue that you get after
[8:13] biking is very different to the kind of fatigue you're going to
[8:16] get on race day. So we want to limit the amount
[8:19] of fatigue that you carry in the muscle damage that you carry in
[8:21] training so you can train again in the next week.
[8:24] So we are going to limit the length of those long runs.
[8:27] Now that's quite a controversial viewing.
[8:29] Triathlon. There are some coaches who
[8:30] you'll see are giving people very, very long runs off the
[8:34] bike. I don't do that.
[8:36] I've got tonnes of evidence of athletes we've coached over the
[8:39] years who've thrived not by doing that.
[8:42] And the way around this is we limit the longest run off the
[8:45] bike to 45 minutes. And then at certain times in the
[8:49] training plan we will have what we call a race simulation
[8:52] weekend and very first thing the next morning the athlete is
[8:57] going to do another run. So we end up with either a
[8:59] broken 70.3 or a broken Iron Man across the weekend.
[9:03] So just the 45 minutes is more than enough for athletes to run
[9:08] off the bike. And that goes for even my very
[9:11] fastest athletes, the ones who qualify for Kona.
[9:13] I'll never have them run more than 45 minutes off the bike and
[9:17] I think that's the key here. The closer that you get to race
[9:22] day, the closer we want to try and mimic the pace you'll be
[9:25] running off the bike in a best case scenario.
[9:27] O we've talked about Sprint and Olympic athletes already at the
[9:31] 70.3 distance. We're typically going to be
[9:34] shooting for a best case scenario for our very fastest
[9:38] athletes of about M pace or marathon pace on Jack Daniels
[9:42] pace calculator. That gives you a really good
[9:45] lead to what's going to be reasonable and often people
[9:48] don't like to hear that. They don't like to be given a,
[9:51] you know, there's a limitation on this.
[9:53] It's really not what it's there for.
[9:55] It's not to be a limitation. It's there to say the best
[9:58] athletes we've seen have managed to run the entire half marathon
[10:02] and pace. So there's no point running any
[10:04] faster than that in training if that's the fastest you're going
[10:07] to be able to deliver come race day.
[10:10] OK. With our Ironman athletes, we
[10:12] don't even let them go that fast.
[10:14] We limit it to epace and just the act of running off the bike
[10:19] is going to be enough to get you ready to run off the bike and
[10:22] race day. So if you're an Ironman athlete
[10:24] employ you really resist the temptation to make your run off
[10:29] the bike harder than your best case scenario run off the bike
[10:33] in training. Now what can you, what can you
[10:37] get as a lead as to what your best case scenario will be?
[10:40] Well, for most people, if you've done one before, use your
[10:44] previous best Iron Man run results as the cap on your page.
[10:48] You can't go any faster than that.
[10:50] If you want to train faster, prove it by racing faster.
[10:54] It's going to limit the damage you can do to yourself in
[10:56] training for people who are doing the first time.
[10:59] I'm going to limit you to the very top end of your epace.
[11:02] And honestly, for most athletes, if you run the middle of your
[11:05] eBay zone on the Jack Daniels pace calculator, you're doing a
[11:09] fantastic job. It is only the very fastest
[11:13] stage group as who I see able to run at the top end of their
[11:16] epace off the bike on race day. Now, again, there's a certain
[11:20] amount of of realism needed here from people and sometimes
[11:25] athletes don't like that. Sometimes a certain percentage
[11:28] of athletes like to dream. They like to believe that they
[11:31] are capable of running 235 marathon off the bike, just like
[11:35] the athlete they've seen on TV. You are not going to run the
[11:39] same pace off the bike in an Iron Man as you've run in your
[11:42] open Ironman. And as a rough rule of thumb,
[11:44] I'd say there's about a 30 minute delta.
[11:48] If you're a three hour flat Ironman runner, you can be
[11:52] looking to run about 3:30 off the bike.
[11:54] If you're a four hour Ironman, 4 hour flat Ironman runner, sorry,
[11:59] a four hour flat marathon runner, you can expect to be
[12:03] running 4:40 to 4:45 off the bike.
[12:06] There's about that much of A delta between the two, so
[12:09] there's no point in you running faster in training than that.
[12:13] All you're doing is training at a different gate to what you're
[12:15] going to be racing at come race day.
[12:17] So in summary then, the brick runs that we'll have you do are
[12:21] of a very specific purpose. They're going to be much shorter
[12:25] than most people use and most coaches prescribe.
[12:28] And they're going to be for a very specific purpose of getting
[12:31] your mind used to the idea that you are going to be able to run
[12:34] well again off the bike. Much, much more so than the
[12:38] physical reason for doing the run itself.
[12:41] We're really going to steer you away from doing any long runs
[12:44] off the bike and certainly nothing longer than 45 minutes
[12:47] off the bike. OK, then that brings us to the
[12:51] end of. This week's.
[12:52] Episode So here are some discount codes and deals for you
[12:55] over at Precision Fuel and hydration.com.
[12:57] Use the code Oxygen 24 for 15% off.
[13:00] Your first electrolyte order. And over at
[13:03] teamoxygenaddict.com, I think we've got the most comprehensive
[13:06] triathlon coaching programme. For busy age.
[13:08] Groupers, if you've enjoyed what you've heard today and the
[13:11] advice has helped you out, well, great stuff.
[13:14] I hope that's helped put some of your fears at rest and I know
[13:16] from some of the calls we've had, it's helping raise the
[13:20] right questions in the minds. Of people.
[13:22] As to whether their current coaching relationship is working
[13:25] for them, if you're looking for a change, or if you're looking
[13:28] for high quality, proven coaching for Ironman or 70.3
[13:31] triathlon this year, you can just check out the.
[13:34] Details of our. Coaching packages on our website
[13:37] at teamoxygenaddict.com and then if you're interested, there's a
[13:40] link in the show notes below. You can join our waiting list
[13:44] and you'll be notified if the slot becomes available and at
[13:47] that point you'll have a chance to book a call.
[13:49] With us and see if you'd be a good fit for joining.
[13:51] The team so although we don't have slots available at the
[13:54] moment, we'll make those call appointments available to people
[13:58] as and when we do have athletes who and their coaching packages
[14:02] during the season if and when that happens.
[14:04] So remember there's links in the show notes so you don't have to
[14:07] remember them till next week. Have a great safe training and
[14:10] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[14:13] been listening to the. Oxygen added.
[14:14] Just see ya.

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