Bicycling cross-over fitness

I found cycling (mainly on a stationary bike) to be a great supplemental aid to my running. It really builds up your legs and helps prevent leg injury. Some of my indoor rides, though, were up to 80 miles. I really found that these long rides greatly helped with my tempo and threshhold runs. But, even like workouts for about an hour (maybe like 15 to 25 miles) are great too. I generally figure that every 4 miles of cycling is equivalent to 1 mile of running.

Time your self doing 5km cycle as fast as you can. Say it takes you 11.5 minutes. 23mins( your 5k pr) divided by 11.5= 2, so for every 1 minute / 1 mile running, ride for 2 minutes/2miles at the same intensity.

Fast&Furious1 wrote:

Time your self doing 5km cycle as fast as you can. Say it takes you 11.5 minutes. 23mins( your 5k pr) divided by 11.5= 2, so for every 1 minute / 1 mile running, ride for 2 minutes/2miles at the same intensity.

Ugh, it is so much simpler. Time at a given effort. Cyclists don't talk about miles. Volume at a given wattage (if cross training for running is your goal, minutes at a given HR). Go do an easy run with a HRM and then duplicate that HR on a bike. Use high cadence - far easier for a runner to get their HR up without wearing out their quads first at high cadence/lower gear. You can ride all day at submaximal HRs/Zone 1 power - how many miles one rides means nothing without reference to power output/HR.

I just started back running some after 6 months of only riding (got my FTP up to 311w at age 44 with lots of ZOne 2/3 rides of 80 minutes and some long interval workouts) and my first run back was 11 at 7:20 pace (In Colorado) at the same HR as always. Like I never quit (of course, without running specificity, harder paces would be functionally harder).

The hard thing for runners going to cycling is learning to ride high cadence - low cadence and your fast twitch muscles fatigue before you get your HR up. Cadence is as instrumental as power in getting aerobic work. Mashing in the 80s will not get your HR up and your legs will give out. And riding makes you tired for your runs (your cycling muscles are the ones that take pounding). Running doesn't effect your rides at all. Last night I did an hour at 252w and then 20 minutes at 324w and I am dreading running today. But riding is easy the day after a run.

The only time I feel like I get an equivalent workout on the bike is if I go out and ride hard for a long time. 40 - 60 miles on the bike feels like 10 miles running for me. If you really want to keep your fitness up, ride hills!!!

Brian wrote:

But riding is easy the day after a run.

not if you try and ride hard.

i can suffer through a running speed workout the day after time trial effort on the bike and come close to pace. it's painful but it's doable. but if i try and do a time trial on the bike the day after a running speed workout, i can't get the HR or watts up because the legs are too dead.