Why not bike instead of run on easy days?

Lrp

How would you rate incline treadmill walking as cross training compared to cycling?

Dr j

Would you go so far as to say your current regiment gets you within 2 minutes of your current genetic potential?

Thanks

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Not a College Runner wrote:

I also aqua jog 2-4 hours per week with a goal of hitting 14-16 total aerobic hours per week. I was in crazy shape in October, did a 10-miler at 5:58 pace and 8x200 in 30.3 avg on 50sec rest (I'm also at altitude). This after pretty light workouts and never hitting 50mpw. I got a slight injury after the 10-miler but now I'm building back up for indoor season. I expect to run at least 4:07 in the mile if I stay healthy.

Will update on my training and racing. My conclusion is that cycling helps big time. And so does weight.

Even on high altitude, none of these workouts (10 mi in 5:58 and 8x200 in 30.3) indicate anything remotely to a 4:07 mile.

Right. 10 at 5:58 in what sounds like more than a tempo effort, even at altitude, is maybe 15:30 shape at best. 8x200 in 30. is okay. Certainly not 4:07.

Most people in this thread are likely underestimating the amount of running that elite xc skiers do. Look up Marit Bjorgen's training (

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5741652/pdf/fphys-08-01069.pdf

) as one well-documented example.

34% of her total annual training volume was running (skiers measure training load in hours). That's 34% of 937 hours... or 319 hours a year. That's not elite-runner levels of running... but that's not nothing, either. Especially considering that her running volume necessarily decreased a lot during a 4- to 5-month competition season, that's a not small amount of running volume during the summer and fall.

907 born wrote:

Most people in this thread are likely underestimating the amount of running that elite xc skiers do. Look up Marit Bjorgen's training (

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5741652/pdf/fphys-08-01069.pdf

) as one well-documented example.

34% of her total annual training volume was running (skiers measure training load in hours). That's 34% of 937 hours... or 319 hours a year. That's not elite-runner levels of running... but that's not nothing, either. Especially considering that her running volume necessarily decreased a lot during a 4- to 5-month competition season, that's a not small amount of running volume during the summer and fall.

Wow, 937 hours. more than 2.5 hrs / day training on average.

I guess you can get away with more when you are not doing the stress of running.

Cyclists sometimes ride 5-6 hours/day. That sounds unbelievably grueling, not to mention dangerous.

I Googled "Gebrselassie" and "bike" and came on the Facebook picture of Geb on an Elliptigo. For some reason when I linked it in the previous post, it says that the page is not available. Here is another link about Elliptigo at Yaya Village but not photo:

https://www.snewsnet.com/press-release/haile-gebrselassies-elite-training-camp-brings-in-elliptigos

Germany wrote:

Wow, 937 hours. more than 2.5 hrs / day training on average.

I guess you can get away with more when you are not doing the stress of running.

Cyclists sometimes ride 5-6 hours/day. That sounds unbelievably grueling, not to mention dangerous.

Oh, it's more like 4-5 hours/day in summer, trending down much lower during the heart of race season. 2 hours running in the morning, 2 hours rollerskiing in the afternoon, is a pretty typical summer training day for a national- or international-level nordic skier.

Not trying to hijack this whole thread into "skiers train a lot"... but man do skiers train a lot. (Keep in mind that the World Cup season involves racing 2x/weekend for close to 4 months in a row, late November through late March. You need a pretty big base to keep up with that much intensity over a 4-month race season.)

Bitcoin wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Even on high altitude, none of these workouts (10 mi in 5:58 and 8x200 in 30.3) indicate anything remotely to a 4:07 mile.

Right. 10 at 5:58 in what sounds like more than a tempo effort, even at altitude, is maybe 15:30 shape at best. 8x200 in 30. is okay. Certainly not 4:07.

Haha. We'll talk soon.

Nothing about these workouts indicate you can run a 4:07 mile unless you are a heavily speed based athete (400/800) guy.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Not a College Runner wrote:

I also aqua jog 2-4 hours per week with a goal of hitting 14-16 total aerobic hours per week. I was in crazy shape in October, did a 10-miler at 5:58 pace and 8x200 in 30.3 avg on 50sec rest (I'm also at altitude). This after pretty light workouts and never hitting 50mpw. I got a slight injury after the 10-miler but now I'm building back up for indoor season. I expect to run at least 4:07 in the mile if I stay healthy.

Will update on my training and racing. My conclusion is that cycling helps big time. And so does weight.

Even on high altitude, none of these workouts (10 mi in 5:58 and 8x200 in 30.3) indicate anything remotely to a 4:07 mile.

What about 3­mile warmup plus 4­mile tempo (6:08, 6:04, 5:48, 5:40). 3­mile cooldown. Think this indicates sub 1:43 800 to come?

How did you get on?

As others have said, specificity of training is critical to musculoskeletal adaptations that make you more economical at that activity. Developing activity-agnostic aerobic or lactate clearing capacity is also important but not the only thing. You can for example have a high VO2Max, which is like saying you have an engine that can pump out a lot of fuel like an SUV, but you need to combine it with economy that determines what you can do with that fuel. Improving running economy, or for that matter any activity economy, requires activity-specific training.

Does Phil still post here? I enjoyed his posts, but I remember him running too fast a lot and being injured most of the time.

I ride a single speed mountain bike, geared very low, for three or four hours every few weeks. It's a fairly old bike, allowing my feet to be closer together than on modern bikes, and it feels every bit like running when I'm pedaling at a running cadence.

This has completely replaced my "long run" routine, or in my case, anything above an hour.

I've run around the block enough times that this isn't hurting my muscle memory or whatever, and it's just a stress or effort, like running is.