MDcatV

you are not a mediocre TT rider Chappy, it's your natural discipline.

he sure did.

There is the Church Creek Time Trial in Maryland, it's a loop on the eastern shore are and has an elevation change of about 7 feet over 40K. The course record if I'm not mistaken is 48:18, which is very fast. The guy who did it started a minute behind me and passed me about 4 K into the race. He had time to eat and shower by the time I got to the finish line!

mattm

It's true.

I agree with Lance it's efficient af in terms of aerobic workout, but also agree that it doesn't necessarily work the same muscles. If you want to peg your HR in the 150-170 bpm zone for 30 minutes, it's the easiest way. On the bike I'd need to ride 25 mins just to get to a hill/open area where I could do that in the first place (due to stop signs/lights).

I only run in the offseason/winter, not during race season. Makes the legs too sore, although that gets better the more you run.

It's just really convenient - throw on some shorts & shoes and head out the door. No finding arm warmers/gloves/helmet/fancy shoes/fill bottles/pump tires/etc/etc/etc.

And easier to do in the dark rain for sure.

The way I see it it's a nice thing to do when you can't ride for whatever reason, or it's just not the time of year that you're consistently riding, but it's not a replacement for actual bike training.

spectastic

so it's like a substitute for an indoor trainer. did a 50 minute run yesterday, followed by stretching. easy in and out. similar time efficiency compared to trainer. the only thing is you can do intervals much more effectively on a smart trainer.

idk, can you effectively do intervals on a treadmill? vary between 5:00 and 7:30 min paces to simulate z5 and z4 zones or something like that?

Ttoc6

Oohs boy treadmills. I have a huge tolerance for the trainer on the bike. Like I've done 4 hour rides on the trainer and been okay mentally by the end. Treadmills I last about 5 minutes before I decide I'd rather end it all.

I'd rather run outside in the rain cold and dark than touch a treadmill. Where the truth is I probably won't ride my bike outside until at least February at the rate our winter is going.

Running Intervals on a track gets me going. I remember back to the days of hs track when we would spike up for our hard workouts and it just gets me in the mood.

ancker

I have a treadmill in my Amazon cart. 70% because my wife wants it. 30% because I secretly want to get okay enough running that I can do a 20 minute 5K.
Also because it's hella efficient at burning calories. I'm currently sitting at 70kg and roughly 3.6w/kg. If I could drop 10-15lbs of fat by doing some jogging/running, 4w/kg is a lot easier.

Also because I don't want my bones to snap in half when I try to show my kid how to do a lay up in 5 years.

topflightpro

Someone (Gstein?) posted a walking workout on the treadmill once where you walk at a normal pace, then start raising the incline every minute without changing pace and once you've maxed out, you come back down in elevation. I've done it a few times in hotel gyms. By the time you start getting into double digit inclines, it's pretty brutal.

ancker

I plan to do this three times a week.
2m walk
5m jog
(repeat 5 times)
5m walk

Then increase the jog portion by a minute every week or so until I get to 10 minutes.
Pace will gradually increase, but once I hit 10m of jogging, I'll start focussing more on increasing pace.

Goal is to ease into running so I don't hurt myself leading to time off the bike.
When bike training plan gets a little more serious, I'll switch to 1-2x a week instead of three.

gsteinb

yeah, that's basically my regular treadmill workout. I go an hour. Variations on the theme of up, a bunch of time at max elevation, and then back down.

burnthesheep

That's almost a Galloway plan. Look up one of those for a distance of like 10k or a 1/2 marathon. The build to distance and the run/walk ratios are all covered.

I've relegated myself to being slow for a few years. Running or TT. It's going to take a lot more build up than I initially thought. Researching the power for some TT times, yeah, I was out in left field on a lot of that.

Baby steps and s.m.a.r.t. goals for now.

Oh, I did run a 10k and bike a TT workout the other day. A reverse "brick" if you will.

ancker

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out.

The problem I've found with almost any 'beginner' running program is that they either assume you have no aerobic base or your goal is to be a runner.
I'm neither of those. I just want to lose some fat and build stronger bones. If a side effect is that I can run a fast 5K, cool. Maybe my wife will think I'm slightly less crazy. (unlikely)

The very few articles that I've found about running for cyclists seem to be "do this no more than once a week" or "stop entirely when you switch to specialty phase". Which I'm sure is great advice for super competitive cyclists, but I'm not periodizing or trying to peak for any specific events. My goal is just steady increase of W/KG. I think (maybe incorrectly) I can continue my regular cycling program and add a few easy-ish running workouts for some added gain (read: weight loss).

rumrunn6

the best training for cycling is cycling, but you want to do some running? go for it. might take up swimming & weight training too, those are also good for you, but the best training for cycling is cycling

cmh

The best part about running in the off season is you can do the local Turkey Trot and get a medal for finishing!

spectastic

so it's kind of like hiking? in what ways does this supplement cycling?

gsteinb

Not sure it does. It's my 'I'm in a hotel' workout. For sure you can bury yourself in an hour, and you minimize the running type injuries. I had an incline trainer back in the day before I got back into cycling. I'll take walking/hiking over running any day.

spectastic

well what doesn't kill you..

topflightpro

I was really surprised by how difficult this workout actually was. Like G, I did it in a hotel gym. As the incline goes up, I was almost running to keep up, even if it was a walking pace when flat.

ancker

Sure it does. Not by any increase in power, but by keeping you from:
1) gaining weight because you're burning calories rather than drinking at the hotel bar
2) losing aerobic fitness (assuming your travel is either long or frequent)
3) injuring yourself once you get home (I have problems not just jumping back into a program full-force when I travel for a week, often times I overdo it and end up having to take a day or two off to recover)
4) just plain not going crazy (work travel (at least mine) has a lot of downtime in the evenings, jogging or running on a treadmill keeps me from going insane watching crappy TV shows)

gsteinb

Sure, sort of. I think the inquiry really is more along the lines of why do that over something else for winter workouts.

Doge

I'm having this "serious" discussion with a/some professional/s about the best cross training - xcountry ski vs downhill ski, vs rowing, vs running.
Here is my net - for bike racing:
Rowing - to large a range of motion, too intense and short.
XCountry Ski - great for aerobic, but there tends to be stopping.
Running - not enough muscle movement, but great match aerobically
Down hill - not much aerobically, except you may get some from altitude, but a great interval for quads and gluts leading to more speed.

Depends what you want, but for crit speed downhill wins. Running might cross to RAAM. If you must run, try running up hill/stairs for a better cycling cross.

Ttoc6

Not much stopping when I skate ski. Touring and bc skiing is supposed to be good. I'm learning tons of avy safety stuff in anticipation of doing more bc skiing in the future. The aerobic benefits look huge and I get to downhill ski if the conditions play out right. Snd it's super dorky with all the data you have to track. So it's a bunch of wins for me.

Doge

My point was more, what do you want. The cross sports will yield different cycling results. Some, more aerobic, some more punchy. Some, short interval like. Choose the cross sport according to what you want. Running offers the least benefit to cycling compared to skiing and skating and rowing.

Greenhil

aaronmcd

Why would you run to burn calories when you already ride bikes?
An hour run at 7.5 minute pace (160 lbs) would burn ~1000 calories
An hour ride at 3.5 w/kg (160 lbs) would burn ~1000 calories

Hell, for me, a kind-of-easy-ish-but-still-sucky-cuz-I'm-not-in-running-shape "run" would be like 4 miles at a 10 minute pace = 480 calories
A cray-ultra-easy-feel-like-I-did-nothing-slower-than-grandma recovery ride would be like an hour at 120 watts = 480 calories

Enthalpic

True but more of the energy comes from fatty acids when running.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20190351

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12800102

wphamilton

I am wondering if you guys are a little too focused and have some tunnel vision on this. Perhaps just putting in easy VT1 miles on the bike through the winter AND running, with a little higher intensity, will keep your aerobic conditioning from slipping with minimal impact on your legs for cycling?