Triathlon - Running vs. Cycling?!

hey,

i'm sure this question is asked in these forums countless times, but here it is: i recently heard that cycling can hurt your running or vice versa? is there any truth to this, and is it really that big of a deal? i'm a vetran (10-15yrs) runner, but a rather new cyclist (1yr) but i love 'em both. i love to get a nice long 2-3 hour ride in on my road bike with a big climb (2500-4000ft), but i just ran a 5k in the 18s after not really training. will one hurt the other if i do it too much, or will they benefit each other?? thanks.

They will benefit each other so long as you take the time to practice both simultaneously. I am running for my college, and after frosh year I had done about 27 flat for 8km cross-country. I promptly sprained my ankle upon getting home and was relegated to low impact on it, ie biking. I did that through the whole summer, and it built up my aerobic fitness enough that I was able to run 26:50 with barely any training going into the race. So I would say yes they will benefit each other, however, you have to do each in moderation and pace yourself, otherwise, you will train one set of muscles and leave the other ones in the dust. I will say, it hurt some of my running because I would get more tired on hillier courses last season with the lack of real running I had been able to do during the summer. SO there are trade offs if you devote yourself to one or the other.

Like was said, if you balance the two to how you want to be, it wil lbe fine.

Two words: cross training. Running works as a decent cross activity for cycling, and cycling works as a great cross activity for running. As the other posters said doing both in a balance is the right thing to do. Just don't use one as a replacement for another. They don't work as substitutes, but they're great compliments.

My experience as a crap runner basically has taught me that I can't run better unless I run more, regardless of how bad-ass I get on the bike or in the pool.

Like others have said, cycling won't hurt your running, but I think if you significantly decrease your run training to concentrate on cycling, it wouldn't be surprising to see a decrease in running performance, though overall conditioning would improve.

As a corollary, if you maintained your level of running and just added the cycling (assuming no overtraining, injury, etc.) you would almost certainly see an improvement in both.

and anyway, its way more fun to have three ways to train.

You should look into duathlons run/bike/run the smaller distance ones usually are 5K run/30Kbike/5K run. :)