Urban Brick

Downtown Atlanta is probably one of the least likely places to find an Xterra triathlete in training. As it turns out, I am stuck in the concrete jungle again all week on a business trip. Just as I did 3 weeks ago, I packed my road bike and rollers. I don’t normally elaborate on individual workouts. However today’s “urban brick” was worth talking about. My 19th floor hotel room balcony overlooks the busy hwy 85 interstate and Georgia Tech stadium right in the middle of downtown. I set up my rollers on the hotel balcony overlooking the downtown maze of madness. After warming up for 10 minutes, I cranked out a half hour effort averaging just under race pace heart rate (~155 bpm). I immediately swapped shoes and shorts and headed down to the 4th floor hotel fitness center for a 2 mile treadmill run at the same heart rate as the bike. Following the treadmill, I headed straight to the stairwell for “urban hill repeats”. I ran down to the 1st floor and ascended the stairs to the 25th floor. I repeated the stair routine four times, with an increase in effort each time (I was skipping every other step on the last round). I finished it off with 10 minutes of abs and 5 minutes of stretching back in my room.