What should I do to get aerobically fit?

Yes this will work. Swimming is best because it really challenges the lungs and other muscles but biking works. You just need to push yourself

If you are already running, biking is a nice way to get some "recovery" in with low impact aerobic work. And if you aren't running and want to get a great ride in that's good as well.

I like a mix of cross training as well when you can do it. A hike is a nice mix up too.

yes sire wrote:

Yes this will work. Swimming is best because it really challenges the lungs and other muscles but biking works. You just need to push yourself

If you are already running, biking is a nice way to get some "recovery" in with low impact aerobic work. And if you aren't running and want to get a great ride in that's good as well.

I like a mix of cross training as well when you can do it. A hike is a nice mix up too.

Yeah I agree, in the past I would swim just twice a week and felt a dramatic increase in my fitness. For workout days, would you recommend I replicate the workout on the bike after or just go for an easy ride? Then should I do bike workouts on days when I have easy runs?

Are you limited in your mileage for some reason? Is there a reason you need to be cross training so much?

After workouts should just be an easy ride assuming the workout was fairly hard.

If its a normal run day I think you can push the ride a little bit. Whether you want that to be fartleks or just a sustained hard ride is up to you.

But remember, this is a supplement to your training, not the bulk of it assuming you don't have injury issues keeping you from running.

yes sire wrote:

Are you limited in your mileage for some reason? Is there a reason you need to be cross training so much?

After workouts should just be an easy ride assuming the workout was fairly hard.

If its a normal run day I think you can push the ride a little bit. Whether you want that to be fartleks or just a sustained hard ride is up to you.

But remember, this is a supplement to your training, not the bulk of it assuming you don't have injury issues keeping you from running.

I am currently staying at only 50 miles per week because I have had some history of injuries in the past and I am being more cautious now with mileage. I want to cross train as much as possible to get as fit as my body will allow on such low miles

The more volume of training, the better. Just dont cross train so much that it affects your running workouts. Doing cross training all days seems like a overkill if you are not used to running two times a day all week. I normally cross train one or two times a week with no running that day. I also like biking, swimming, hiking and some cross-country skiing (rollerski and on snow). Of course you should up the volume of cross training gradually as biking can be taxing on your knees and lower back. Since the intensity and HR is lower during cross training I often feel very good on workout days after cross training.

albeto wrote:

The more volume of training, the better. Just dont cross train so much that it affects your running workouts. Doing cross training all days seems like a overkill if you are not used to running two times a day all week. I normally cross train one or two times a week with no running that day. I also like biking, swimming, hiking and some cross-country skiing (rollerski and on snow). Of course you should up the volume of cross training gradually as biking can be taxing on your knees and lower back. Since the intensity and HR is lower during cross training I often feel very good on workout days after cross training.

Yeah I am trying to fit as much volume on my body as possible right now, I'll probably take your advice of doing it before workout days as sort of a shakeout. I'm curious, if you were able to recover from it all, how much would cross-training would be beneficial?