Marathon vs 100 mile bike ride

Marathon, hands down. Have done 3 marathons and one century. Granted I rode the century slowly, but I was surprised how easy it was given my limited training. Maybe if I ran a slow marathon (say 5:00) that would seem easy as well.

agreed. 100 miles is a good training day on the bike. I've never done a 26 mile long run aside from race day. Both are respectable, but the running is harder unless you're flat out hammering on the bike.

I have raced marathons and completed (not raced) centuries, and, as in any endurance event, it's neither about either the distance covered nor the manner in which it's covered, it's all about the effort exerted. Given a basic level of event-specific fitness, and both can make for a nice outing. Try racing either, and you're in for a challenge.

Marathon PR 2:54

Ironman PR 10:34

Marathon is much harder than a 100mile bike ride or even 100 mile time trial and is also much harder than an Ironman. It beats you up a ton more.

Marathon.

Personally, I've found finishing the century (at about 18 mph average) to be much harder than the marathons I've done.

I've been running all my life and am totally untrained as a cyclist. Yet after just two weeks on a fun biking trip in Spain, I thought nothing about getting on my bike and going from Boston to Provincetown, 120 miles. It was long but not particularly challenging. I was trying to make it on time for the ferry back to Boston to the last 3.5 hours were as hard as I could go and still it didn't seem like a very big deal.

It's the pounding of running that makes it a challenge.

I have done as many as 3 rides of 100+ miles in a week, as long as 120 with an average of 22.0 mph. Never did a 100 mile training ride in slower than 4:50 while living in Colorado.

The running is much tougher, only did 2 marathons during my running career with a 2:23:21 debut.

i have done 2 century bike rides. One of which was the Highlander Cycle Tour in upstate New York, and i think an all out 10k is much harder. There is no comparison to the amount of pain u feel in a 5k or 10k, to a century.

You can get in great shape training for and running a marathon; ditto the marathon.

We say the run is harder because of the pounding; also, it is "harder" to avoid injury while running. Biking requires more skills and gear; and, you may crash.

Racing a marathon is harder. However, in general 100 mile rides are just that, rides and not races. The longer road race I did was 75 miles (CatIII), and even that I fould was not that hard, even with a 5-mile climb done each of the three laps with an average speed of 24-25mph (after a relatively leisurely start).

I found that if I ran 30 seconds/mile slower than race pace, that it was not that hard to run the marathon distance. The decent-pace marathon was still a little harder because of the pounding, but otherwise comparable to a hard 100, especially if the 100 was solo, which I have only done a couple of times.

As a cyclist and runner (I have raced competitively inboth sports), I find the MARATHON to be much much more difficult than a century.

Many cyclists do 4-6 centuries per week. Even some slower/less fit cyclists will ride 130-140+ on weekend rides just to "get in the miles."

Just about any sub-3 marathon guy could hop on the bike and ride a century, solo, in less than 6 hours. Not many 6-hour century guys could even finish a marathon.

Marathon much much tougher. I've done 3, needed 5-6 days minimum to recuperate each time.

During ironman training, my longest ride was 136 mi, solo. I was fit as hell at the time, but remember stretching out afterward, feeling like I hadn't done a lick of work. It was incredible! The next day, I swam 3000 meters, and ran 16 miles at around 6:30 pace.

So, bottom line, no comparison...marathon is tougher.

You can coast if you get tired during a century ride. There is no coasting in the marathon.

I've completed a few century rides and have ridden bicycle tours with daily mileage on the order of 70 miles without much specific training. I've never done this at anything like race pace. I believe that I could "complete" a century ride a day indefinitely without specific training beyond the 60 or so miles/week that I ride anyway. It is not unusual for elite level cyclists to ride this sort of mileage daily.

I've "raced" three marathons and would consider that much more difficult than completing a century ride. As well trained as I might have been, I can barely walk for days. I've "completed" another three marathons and a few slow training runs of at least marathon distance and it would be a real strain for me to repeat that for a second day. Possibly I could do so for a few day in a row, but I believe I would be injured in short order if I tried. Runners who can do this are unusual. I suppose the degenerate case of walking a marathon a day might be doable, but I think I'd need a bit of specific training build up to pull it off.

Have to disagree wrote:

Personally, I've found finishing the century (at about 18 mph average) to be much harder than the marathons I've done.

Oh Stop. You are just being a spoiled sport.

You know good and well that a marathon is harder.

I would consider myself more of a cyclist than a runner, I throw out 100 mile training rides at least 2 times a month without thinking. There is no way running the marathon 2 times a month would be that easy.

Whether racing or just training, the running is harder, period.

if you just ride 100 miles - that's easy

if you run 26k at an easy pace - that's also pretty easy, you have to be a little more trained than riding because of the pounding.

but if you do a 100 miles TT on the bike - than this is really hard, something like 4-4.5h very hard, much longer than a marathon.

while a marathon is much harder on the muscles, for the cardiovascular and metabolic system a 100 mi TT is much more demanding (if you are really doing it all out).

on the other hand, you certainly take a lot longer to recover from a marathon because of the greater muscular damage.

It's not a fair comparison. Apples and oranges.

Running is "harder" on the body", everyone knows this and its not really a disagreement.... but I am not so sure thats what the question is really asking.

Go tell a 130 pound guy to play an NFL game and have some 275 pound linebackers pounce on the 135 pound guys ass for an hour straight. He'll be in bed, if not the hospital for for longer than any marathoner recovers from the event. Tell me whats harder then. Making a comparison solely on the basis of how badly your body gets "thrashed" lacks merit to some extent.

The whole thing about how you can coast on a bicycle also kind of lacks scientific merit also. When you coast on flat ground, you lose speed. You have to reaccelerate. (Re)Accelerating actually uses up more energy than actually going at a constant pace. The claim only has merit if your dealing with downhill coasting.

Furthermore, its widely accepted that there is about a 2.5 to 3 conversion factor between biking and running in terms of distance equivelance. Relatively speaking, a 100 mile "century" is actually "longer" (relatively speaking) than a running marathon when you go by the widely accepted conversion factor. A 3 mile run is equivelant to roughly 7.5 to 9 mile bike... and a 6 mile run is equivelant to roughly 15 to 18 mile bike. Likewise, a marathon is then equivelant to roughly 66 - 79 mile bike ride.

Also... most runners who have done "centuries" cannot even credibly claim to compare them with a running race. Centuries, for the most part are casual events done for fun and sightseeing purposes, and even the guys who ride them a bit harder going for time... are not really going balls out. Unless a person is equally well trained in both events (based on times, not on your opinion of whether you think your equally good), and unless that equally trained person is doing both races as his maximum exertion level, you cannot make a fair comparison.

I think any Tour de France rider, whether they are at the front or back of the peleton, will take issue with the claim herein, that they are "taking it easy" in comparison to a marathon runner. Your body might not get thrashed as bad from running, due to the lower impact involved in biking.... but if your hauling ass at 28 mph for 100 miles straight.... your damned well putting in the same cardiovascular and muscular effort that any marathon runner is.

Try it this way. World elite cyclists race 100+ miles day after day even in vicious mountain terrain. World elite runners race one marathon and then they need to recover for weeks or months before doing another one.

Obviously both are hard - so is playing a 90-minute soccer game at competitive level - but there ought to be no doubt at all that the marathon is the killer.