The Iron Mountain Brick

Sometimes you do a workout and the memories stay with you.

Maybe it was the the raw emotion or to digging deep to do it.

Maybe it was because of the damning of a coach who made you do it, bonding with others who were experiencing what you were doing, or maybe the the sights and views while doing it.

Or you have done the workout so many times, you actually time yourself everytime to see if you are getting faster.

In my case, it is all of the above.

It's the Iron Mountain Brick.

I hope you like running UP!

The Iron Mountain brick consists of a 30 mile bike ride on San Diego's Route 67 in East County, with 2500ft of elevation gain.

If that wasn't enough, it is immeditaly followed by a 5.5 mile run UP (and then down) Iron Mountain, with over 1000 feet in elevation gain - in only 2.75 miles!

When training for lavaman last year, I did this with Paul, Jay, Dave and I were all in awe of this incredible workout. AFTER Lavaman, I actually did this workout 3 or 4 times during the summer. (ok, maybe a little extreme, but whatever!)

And last saturday it was time to introduce the new lavaman team to the IM brick.

It was a hot and dry morning, with plenty of winds through the canyons. In a nutshell, the workout was as epic as ever.

I was challenged with a flat tire during the bike portion of it w/ a flat tire, where I got to practice my tire changing skills (changed and on the bike in about 5:30!). After a pretty solid pace w/ Dave Wilcox, Brian Gunn, Greg Kurras, and Pat Drain shortly behind, we started the ascent up the mountain, and were having a grand ol' time. There was an option on the run portion for people to stop after 1.5 miles (and turning around to make it 3 miles round trip), or continue on to the top. Given the elevation change, those that make it to the top are rewarded with fantastic views of San Diego, and possibly Mexico, Orange & Riverside counties, along with San Clemente and Catalina Island, which obviously means you can see the pacific ocean, even though I am about 20-25 miles inland.

When you get to the top - it's kind of humbling seeing everything. Not to mention that you really could use the break! We started our trot back down the mountain, and when we got back to the trail head, we hung out and waited for everyone else to get back, and see the look on their face... when they finished - Experienced... the Iron Mountain Brick!

If you'd like to see what the bike route is, you can check out jaybuddy's GPS motionbased websites:

Bike: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/1538257
Run: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/1538258

got salt?