I have one season of college track left and want to PR and give it everything I got. I can run 75 miles per week decently but whenever I try to go over that I break down. I need to become an endurance aerobic monster if I want to get these PRs. Do you think if I supplemented cycling so I am doing the equivalent of 100mpw or so of volume between running and cycling it would help?
A lot of coaches think that its really hard to mimic running's aerobic stimulus with cycling. The short of it is you need A LOT of cycling. Depends on tons of factors but I think any supplemental aerobic activity is better than none, but you can't say oh if I bike this much its like I'm doing "x" mile per week. You can surely get a lot more aerobic stimulus with a lot of cross training, especially because of the reduced impact. With swimming and biking you could more than double your time spent working aerobically but its really hard to quantify the benefit that will give you. It will help though.
my legs feel like shìt the day after spinning
I wanted to try the same thing as you for the same reason, more of an aerobic stimulus, with swimming instead of cycling. I never tried to quantify the amount I swam in relation to the distances I ran. Instead, I balanced 60+mpw of running and gradually increased how long I could swim for (10 x 2 laps, 12 x 2 laps, 14 x 2 laps, 10 x 3 laps, etc.) using basic linear periodization. After a few weeks I had to stop because I didn't have the time to recover from both the running and swimming (legs would be super heavy on runs), but let me know in the thread how it goes!
For pure endurance, i think cycling works. But, it needs to be done at a HR that mimics running HR. This is hard to do if you don't regularly cycle.
First, wear a HRM on an easy run that is in the aerobic zone and remember this range. On the bike, at first you will have to really push to get the HR up to this range. Work on hour to 1:30 long rides where you get it into that range and hold it for 1-2 mins then back off. Slowly increase the time you do this. After a while, you will get to the point where you can hold this HR zone unless your legs are really tired from a hard run.
You don't necessarily need 6 hours, Ride indoors on trainer or rollers or if a college student head to your gym. When to ride? include 30-40 minutes after your long run, 20-30 minutes eachtime after your hard sessions, spin easy 6 hours after you race on Saturday or have hard effort that morning.
Back in 97 at the twighlight of my career ran sub 30 for 10k run 70-75 miles with just an extra bit of cycling. Good luck!
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