Running and cycling - a question...

this equals zero miles per week. Dude, cycling and running are two totally different sports. You work your leg muscles at different joint angles with regards to being on a bike versus running on ground. Speaking in terms of metabolic rate, you burn roughly the same amount of calories in 3-4 miles of biking as you do running. So, maybe if you want you can try to relate you 25 miles per week to about 6-8 miles of running.

fert wrote:

this equals zero miles per week. Dude, cycling and running are two totally different sports. You work your leg muscles at different joint angles with regards to being on a bike versus running on ground. Speaking in terms of metabolic rate, you burn roughly the same amount of calories in 3-4 miles of biking as you do running. So, maybe if you want you can try to relate you 25 miles per week to about 6-8 miles of running.

You seem pretty certain of this, so let me pose an example:

I know some guys that bike 5-7 hours a week. They do not at all. They can ride 100 milers averaging over 20mph. They are 30-45 years in age.

If I randomly picked 5 of these cyclists, and then I picked 5 guys that live on my block and raced them in a 5k, scored cross country style, which group of 5 would win the team score?

Now, with that scenario answered, reanswer the original question.

Thanks for your time.

should read:

I know some guys that bike 5-7 hours a week. They do not run at all

i always find that biking as cross training helps my aerobic capacity ... no matter what anyone says there is correlation btwn them and cycling helps running

mplatt wrote: I know some guys that bike 5-7 hours a week. They do not (run) at all. They can ride 100 milers averaging over 20mph.

That's nice. Serious cyclists and even I think triathletes spend considerably more time on the bike than that - heck, serious runners might run twice that many hours, and you can train a lot more on a bike than you can run - but I'd agree with the point you seem to be making, that riding a fair bit is real work, real training, it makes you fit...

But I don't see how that's supposed to apply to the guy who cycles 5 miles a day - two and a half miles to work and the same back home. I'm doing similar, and while it's terrific - great being out in the sun & air, under my own power; burns some calories; meet more girls on the bike than running - I can't begin to take seriously a notion that I'd better knock 10 miles off my running or else risk injury and illness.

There's no impact. Riding to commute doesn't mean going all out all the time. Stresses different muscles than your running ones. And by strengthening those muscles, maybe it even corrects imbalances that allow you to run *more*. And mostly, the OP and I simply aren't doing that much riding.

What's next, wearing a pedometer so we can deduct our two miles of accumulated daily walking from our running?

I know serious bikers bike much more than that. These guys bike 100-200 mpw.

My point was, that even at that low level of biking...well I think you get my point...

Trackster03 wrote:

i always find that biking as cross training helps my aerobic capacity ... no matter what anyone says there is correlation btwn them and cycling helps running

I would say that the poorer the fitness the more impact cycling has. If you are in poor shape and add cycling I could see an improvement in running, but if you are a person running a lot, then improvement might be negligible if any difference.

Some of the adaptations from cycling are generic (increased capillaries, increased mitochondria, etc).

However, for a person running a lot of miles I think adding more exercise might impede recovery.

please dont squeeze the garmin wrote:

There's no impact. Riding to commute doesn't mean going all out all the time.

totally agree. biking was designed as mode of transportation before it was designed as form of exercise.

we are such a sedentary society that any time we are not sitting in a car, we think we are exercising. everyday movement is not going to help or hurt your fitness.

I am a 53 year old ex-runner who cycles 12-15 hrs a week spring to fall. I would say if you have any running fitness that 5 miles a day on a bike commuting as opposed to an intense training ride, is probably the equivelent of an easy 1 mile jog warmup before a workout. By the way I run 3 days a week in the fall on trails for 45-60 min and was able to run a 20 min 5k off that after 4 weeks of running.

I cycle about 7-10 hours a week and run between 0-10 miles a week, usually closer to 0. how fast do you think I can run a 5k if I told you I havent done a fast run in more than 6 months? I can still go out and break 16 min without having run close to that pace in training. and it is because of bike training. it does alot more than people think.

I'm wary of overtraining - should I knock a bit off my target mileage each week?

that is such a funny thing to say!! dude you are biking an average of 5 miles a day that is negligable.

Doesn't (or didn't?) Meb do a good bit of cycling intermixed with his running because he was injury prone? Granted, he wouldn't have been merely commuting 2.5 miles to work each way.