Sticking To The Maurer Power Training Plan – Brick Workout

I am not going to lie about my motivation still being a little under the weather. I posted this morning how I just could not get out of bed. I did not ride last night. Yes, my schedule just was not workable to dedicating the block of time needed, but another part was just not wanting to.

Today I made a vow to myself to quit riding the unmotivational train ride to nowhere. Honestly, I have to thank Josh H when he left such a needed comment on my DailyMile page about hitting my goal Saturday. He said

you’re going to do it. Every time I doubt what I can do I think about those in my life that have gotten me to this point and I write them on my hand. When it’s tough during a race I look at my palm and I get a burst of energy. I also tell myself “you can do more than you think you can.” You got this Aaron

He is right. I need to be thankful that I can do what I do. Amanda and I talk about this all the time, at least 3-4 times a week. There are so many people we know who are going through things, have this or that that keeps them or a loved one from getting out and exercising. I also started to think about my kids and being able to tell them that I gave it my all. 


So, Ava went down for a nap a little past noon and I quickly jumped on my bike to ride before I lost my mojo to better myself.

I was really hoping to start to see some improvements in my fitness after some major changes to my diet and some new changes to my nutrition while training.


I originally was going to ride 45 straight miles, then thought about doing a Spinerval interval workout, but then I went back and visited my insights and new changes to training after my Racine experience. One of them was to include brick workouts as I never do them. I decided to do just that.


I rode 40 miles on the bike at an easy pace of 20 mph for 40 miles. I started to watch Breaking Bad. I am hooked after two episodes. From there I jumped off and was ready to tackle the treadmill when I realized Amanda was home early from class.

I quickly put on running shorts and headed outdoors instead. It was perfect to train outside to work on heat and also to avoid the treadmill. My plan was three miles for this first brick with at least one pick-up to mentally prep for Bix.

I headed out with my new HR monitor, shorts, and sunglasses. The sun was shining and I took off. It felt great to be running. I remembered how I felt this good at Racine, but died before long. I kept myself at an easy pace. I tried not to rev it too much despite really wanting to just get out there and hammer it.

After about .8 of mile I hit a nice flat stretch of road and decided to do a .5 mile pickup at my Bix pace Saturday. I ran this split at a 6:59 mile pace. It felt good. It felt even better to know my body could hit sub 7 and not die. I know I don’t think I could hit that pace for 7 miles, but it felt nice and relaxed. By this point I decided to just go for a loop which would put me past 3 miles. I eased up and tried to run at my half marathon pace for 70.3. I could not get myself to go that slow, but I did ease up to around 8 min pace. I then decided to hit one more pick up on a flat road at ran another .5 at a 7:15 pace. This is where I will probably end up. It was much harder this time around.

Right after this it started to rain. I finished up with 4 miles right at my house. It was great running in the rain. I took it as a sign for me to wash away all my self doubt. I have been pretty hard on myself and I need to get back to positive thinking and this brick workout helped me get back on track.

Now, the key is to get back to a good recovery. I will swim a big swim workout tomorrow morning and that will be it until Bix Saturday morning. I hope to see many of you there. It will be a great time.