Another week, another lame pun on the word "brick".
I had a double headphone fail on Friday: not only did I manage to lose my wireless bluetooth Jaybird headphones, but the Sony wired headphones I bought in Malaysia (to replace the pair I accidentally left lying by the pool) decided to crap out on me. I know that it is completely irrational, but these kind of things really annoy me. The Jaybird headphones have had quite an eventful life. I bought them in New York as a bit of retail therapy to compensate for the cancelling of the Marathon in 2012. Only a few months later they stopped working but, as they were "guaranteed sweat-proof", I sent them back to Jaybird. I'd lost the receipt but, thanks to Best Buy where I bought them, I was able to phone up and get them to send me the till receipt by email! However, the headphones never made it back. Even so, they were good enough to take my word for it and they sent a brand new pair which I had to pick up from a friend's house in New York, which has lasted until now. More recently, I lost one of the little ear-hooks for which replacements can only be sent to an address in the United States(!) but, as I was due to go to New York a week later, I again had them sent to my friend's house. So three trips to New York just for them to disappear without a trace. Anyway, I decided to try a new brand of wired headphones - the Yurbuds - which are "guaranteed not to fall out". So far the results are very positive, after sweating just under 4 kilos they had no problem staying in running at 16 kph. The sound quality is also much better than I experienced with the Sony ones.
Those 4 kilos of sweat were produced doing my "brick" on Sunday. My wife was away in Morocco so I had to do the whole thing indoors while "looking after" the kids who were playing GTA V on the Xbox (you can just about make it out in the photo). I kept myself entertained between watching the latest series of "House of Cards" and occasionally watching the kids antics on GTA: a few times I nearly fell of my bike as watching them doing backflips on their motorbike.
I found the brick a lot harder than the one I did the week before. I'd only added 10 minutes of Half Ironman intensity in the middle of the bike leg and tacked on 10 minutes running at 16 kph at the end. My ex-coach used to equate an hour on the turbo trainer to 75 minutes on the bike (outside) because you can't coast (free-wheel) and it is a lot more monotonous. I'm not sure that there is such a difference but, between this and the fact that I am suffering from the cold that my kids have kindly passed on to me, my heart rate was climbing to 175 on the run, 10 bpm more than in the previous brick. To be honest, I had to stop a number of times and I felt my legs tensing up. As I got tired, my running form became less elastic and more "brute-force" and - in spite of the compression I decided to wear for the first time in ages - I could feel the threat of cramps knocking at the door. I felt pretty wrecked for most of the day but, in my experience, there is usually at least one training session in the build up to a race which feels like a failure and yet, I reckon, that these are often the breakthrough sessions. The danger is that stopping even during a hard workout has a negative psychological price, so it is important to minimize this. In general, the key is to set workouts which are in that sweet spot between being too easy and too challenging.
I had a double headphone fail on Friday: not only did I manage to lose my wireless bluetooth Jaybird headphones, but the Sony wired headphones I bought in Malaysia (to replace the pair I accidentally left lying by the pool) decided to crap out on me. I know that it is completely irrational, but these kind of things really annoy me. The Jaybird headphones have had quite an eventful life. I bought them in New York as a bit of retail therapy to compensate for the cancelling of the Marathon in 2012. Only a few months later they stopped working but, as they were "guaranteed sweat-proof", I sent them back to Jaybird. I'd lost the receipt but, thanks to Best Buy where I bought them, I was able to phone up and get them to send me the till receipt by email! However, the headphones never made it back. Even so, they were good enough to take my word for it and they sent a brand new pair which I had to pick up from a friend's house in New York, which has lasted until now. More recently, I lost one of the little ear-hooks for which replacements can only be sent to an address in the United States(!) but, as I was due to go to New York a week later, I again had them sent to my friend's house. So three trips to New York just for them to disappear without a trace. Anyway, I decided to try a new brand of wired headphones - the Yurbuds - which are "guaranteed not to fall out". So far the results are very positive, after sweating just under 4 kilos they had no problem staying in running at 16 kph. The sound quality is also much better than I experienced with the Sony ones.
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| Too aggressive? Maybe, but difficult / expensive to do much about it |
I found the brick a lot harder than the one I did the week before. I'd only added 10 minutes of Half Ironman intensity in the middle of the bike leg and tacked on 10 minutes running at 16 kph at the end. My ex-coach used to equate an hour on the turbo trainer to 75 minutes on the bike (outside) because you can't coast (free-wheel) and it is a lot more monotonous. I'm not sure that there is such a difference but, between this and the fact that I am suffering from the cold that my kids have kindly passed on to me, my heart rate was climbing to 175 on the run, 10 bpm more than in the previous brick. To be honest, I had to stop a number of times and I felt my legs tensing up. As I got tired, my running form became less elastic and more "brute-force" and - in spite of the compression I decided to wear for the first time in ages - I could feel the threat of cramps knocking at the door. I felt pretty wrecked for most of the day but, in my experience, there is usually at least one training session in the build up to a race which feels like a failure and yet, I reckon, that these are often the breakthrough sessions. The danger is that stopping even during a hard workout has a negative psychological price, so it is important to minimize this. In general, the key is to set workouts which are in that sweet spot between being too easy and too challenging.
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