biking miles equals ???? running miles

Running is running plain and simple. If you can't run due to injury there is no "magic" equal to running.

Sooooo, if injured do the sensible thing = TAKE TIME OFF.

Unless your are an Olympic hopeful why be a body nazi?

Eat , drink be merry.....life is too short to be neurotically

fixated about constant fitness.

Is there a way you can bike to the pool, do your pool running workout and then bike home? Work all the muscle groups in a shorter time period.

I agree that bike miles or even time spent on the bike will replace miles spent running. For those times when you need to avoid the pound of running or need to take a break from running, biking is a great supplemental workout. I have had several foot surgeries and I was able to get a good bike workout in wearing one of those stiff wood shoes the podiatrist makes you wear. Some workout is better than nothing but it does take me a couple of weeks of regular running to get my running legs back after time spent of the bike.

Tis better to do something and keep in shape, than to do nothing and get fat. If it don't hurt ya, then do it. Bike, lift weights (low wt, high reps), swim, do what is fun for you and keep in shape.

Alan

The reason I want to cross train to stay in shape is because I'm sick of putting on 20+ lbs of fat every time I am forced to take time off. Also, I pretty much suck at running right now, and really want to change that.

chgray-

I don't have a functional bike right now, so I'm forced to use the stationary bike at the gym.

If you're still recovering from a hip injury you should be careful not to bike too much.

Thanks Purdue Grad,

I wasn't trying to impress people that I will never meet in my life. Do you think that it is realistic to bike 25 mph on a stationary bike or do you think it is in kilometers for some odd reason?

Thank God chgray had the good sense to call BS on that one. If you ride that well that effortlessly everyday, you are pursuing the wrong sport my friend.

I vote for SERIOUS calibration problems or just big fat bold faced lies.

Portland Runner,

Thats an interesting idea. And on paper it seems sound but one of the benefits of running big miles that everyone seems to forget about is this, running more makes you more efficient at running. It not only increases cardio stuff like stroke volume, number of capillaries and such, but the motion of running.

I think for injury prone people it is a good idea, but only if the pounding is too much. Or maybe for shorter races 800m, 1500m or whatever, but for anything 5k and up I think you need the efficiency.

What do you mean by junk miles? I take it you mean anything non tempo, you know just your normal base building miles. I bet lots of people could run fast doing this but I honestly think if you want to be absolutely as good as you can you have to run, a lot too.

Cragg Advocate

I know you are going 25 MPH not KPH on your stationary. If you can run 4:25 for 1600m this is not that hard. I would guess 75 - 80% of max HR maybe lower. So you are getting in a solid recovery day. Good luck this track season.

I must have missed the stationary part. Riding on the roads and riding a stationary bike are two vastly different things. Wind resistance makes a big difference. Running on a treadmill at 0% incline at 7:15 pace equates to 7:00 on the road and there is a lot more wind resistance when cycling.

Alan

MLB fan; The ratio of biking miles to running miles is generally accepted as 4 to 1. Likewise the ratio of Time Spent Training between biking and running is about 2 to 1.

For example a 20 mile bike ride at a comfortable effort on the flats will take about an Hour. That is an equivalent workout to a comfortable 5 mile run which would take just over 30 minutes.

Another way of looking at it is this; Top Pro cyclists train up to 500-600 miles a week. Top Marathoners train up to 140 miles a week. This is a 4 to 1 ratio.

Of course how hard you are working can change these ratios a bit, but generally a fit runner will not be able to get his/her heart rate up as high on the bike as they can running. Their legs muscles are not developed for biking enough to be able to put out the power to fully drive up the heart rate.

For instance, if a hard tempo run for you is at a heart rate of 170, I predict that you will find a similar perceived rate of exertion on the bike will have your heart rate at about 155.

Biking and pool running will keep you very fit, and greatly reduce the time it takes you to get back to top running shape, than sitting on the couch.

As for the gentleman who is riding the stationary bike at 25 miles an hour; please understand that the speedometers on the stationary bikes are a total joke. The are not even remotely accurate, unlike treadmills which are generally well calibrated and within 10 seconds per mile.

Ther is no way a novice cyclist could maintain 25MPH for an hour on a flat road loop, no matter how running fit they are. 22MPH would be very good, and 23MPH would be excellent, but 25MPH would require a few months of hard cyling and aerobars.

Sorry for giving some of you heart attacks. Thank you for those who simply helped me to understand the difference instead of calling me a liar. That one guy must take this sport seriously if he thanks God that somebody clarified the fact that I didn't bike 25 mph outside. It was not an attempt to show my dominance in a sport in which I don't compete. I can bike fairly well as I have biked probably 1-4 times a week for the last 9 months or so while running as well. I'm interested to know if there are any other reasons for the huge difference between stationary and outside. Would keeping yourself balance cause a somewhat notable amount of exertion or does wind resistance affect it that much?

Purdue Grad, My heart rate was about 128-135 for most of the ride and I'm 18 years old (so I guess my max is about 200). The calibration could be off too. Thanks again.

Mr. Cragg Advocate,

Holding your balance will not add any extra fatigue or slow you down, but wind resistance makes a HUGE difference at higher speeds. I don't have the figures in front of me, but at 25mph on a bike you are fighting more drag from air resistance , than from road (rolling) resistance.

For example Lance can go about 31 miles an hour in a 40k time trial on the roads.

If you put him on a treadmill that could acomodate his bike, thus removing wind resistance, he could probably go 34-35 miles an hour, maybe faster. (He'd get really sweaty too though, as you have noticed on the excersize bike.)

Cragg Advocate, there is a useful online bicycling calculator at

w3.iac.net/~curta/bp/velocity/velocity.html

You can plug in lots of variables including wattage (the coin of the realm in bicycle training), body weight, bike weight, tires, riding position, wind and grade (if any). The calculator produces speed and elapsed time for an input distance.

The calculator really lets you see the impact of a headwind, and that?s what I?m getting at. The main difference between a stationary bike (without magnetic, turbine or friction resistance like on many trainers) is the lack of correlation between speed and wind resistance. On level ground aerodynamic drag is by far the biggest influence on speed and power output.

Here?s the physics: the force required to maintain a given velocity (given a fixed coefficient of drag) varies with the square of the speed. That is, doubling your speed requires quadrupling the applied force.

Unfortunately for the rider, that?s not the whole story. Since we?re talking about covering ground over time, we?re adding a third computational vector, and power is what we?re actually concerned with. Power is the measurement of work done over time. Consequently, the news is worse: power required to maintain velocity varies with the cube of the speed. Doubling your speed requires 8 times more power (watts). But. unless you are going really slow, you ain?t gonna double your speed, because you can?t octuple your power output. In realistic terms, on an actual bicycle, increasing your speed from 20 mph to 25 mph requires just about twice as much power.

After riding at 27 mph for 50 minutes on the bike, which included a 10 minute warmup, I guess it is obvious that the stationary bike is a lot different in comparison to out on the roads.

Here is another question. Is it worth it to ride at a pace I can handle for around 2 hours, if my heart rate is only in the 130s range?

When my HR begins approaching 140, 150, 160, etc on the bike, I cannot maintain that pace for very long due to my legs tiring. So which would be better, a hard 40-50 minute ride with my HR between 150-160 for the majority of it (once it climbs up to that), or a 90 minute to 2 hour ride with my HR in the 130's?

I would assume that its basically the same sort of thing as you do with running. Do some long easy rides, shorter tempo rides, fartlek type rides, etc... I would say mix it up to keep it fresh, but I'm not a pro bike as discussed earlier.

It depends on the purpose of the particular training session, same as with running. If you are stimulating adaptation to increased vascular and intracellular lactate levels, then riding with your heart rate a little below the normal HR for lactate threshold runs is what you should do (as noted in another post, bike HR runs 10 or so bpm lower than equivalent effort in running).

If mitochondrial enzymes and metabolism are what you want to adapt, like you do with your long runs, then ride for a long steady time at your long-run HR (minus 10 or so bpm).

Tailor the duration and effort of the ride to the type of training stimulus desired, just as with your running.

Portland Runner your idea seems very sound to me. In fact, it's one of the little tricks I employ as a competitive masters athlete. I run zero recovery miles per week. Workbouts (Coe's term), that would of necessity be recovery runs for me if all I did was run, can much more often be carried out at real training stimulus intensities if the impact trauma is removed (with a bike, elliptical trainer or a pool).

For example, when I'm in the 6-8 weeks of intense intervals and repeats leading up to a macrocycle's goal race, I can still swim very dadgum hard on a day that must be devoid of running because of muscle and connective tissue trauma. In fact, the cool water and the flutter and dolphin kicking is very therapeutic for sore legs! Alternatively, I can bike pretty solid on that swim day and be recovered soreness-wise the next day (but rather taxed systemically). So the following day might occasionally allow for a hard running workout alone or a combination of medium effort running and riding.

I find it fun and interesting to balance and tune this stuff. Perhaps more importantly, I can sustain much more quality training stimulus over time (with less "junk" miles or minutes) by cross training.

Would I become a faster runner if I ran more and cross trained less? In my mid-twenties, yes. In my mid-fifties, absolutely no. Now I can stand only so many footstrikes, hard toe push-offs and hard hamstring contractions per week, even if optimally spaced throughout the week.

But: once I've hit that weekly quality / quantity ceiling of trauma with my running, I find I still have plenty of strength and aerobic adaptation available to me with other modalities.

In sum, even if I was 20 years old, I'd have to allocate some running to recovery between hard workbouts (or take total rest) if all I did was run. The tissues gotta heal. But while they're healing I can still get real work done, if I play it smart.

Now, PR, this is just between you and me, right? I don't want this getting around to my potential competition. Perhaps we should troll out a thread about how cross training is the bane of the masters runner, and how recovery runs are junk miles; better to go hard every day, and only do it with running. You with me, buddy?

Hate to burst your bubble, but you are not riding at 27mph. If you were doing that on your own, without drafting, you would be a very very good cyclist.