Trakhak

If your cycling intervals don't feel as hard as your running intervals, you're geared too high. It's an easy mistake to make.

gregf83 

You're not making any sense. Start your 1 min biking interval at 650W and see if you can hold it for the min. If your 'all out' on a bike is only 450W of course it's not going to feel hard.

wphamilton

"feels hard" is not what I'm talking about. Of course "it's hard". Please, just go out, today, and run 8-10 hard quarters or 12 1-1 intervals, and tomorrow report back that it's the same workout as 1-1 intervals on the bike.

mcours2006

Running 100 miles at any speed is hard.

Garfield Cat

Not necessarily "easy" but it may become mentally doable.

Assume a runner (high school or college), who never did any kind of cycling except for kid's biking, then begins to cross train using cycling for the aerobic and anaerobic benefits.

Over some time, this runner/cyclist will get into the groove and discover the differences in the "all-out" sprint and the 90% effort sprints, etc. All this without the pounding of a run.

This could be viewed as a runners' new skill set. There are very few high school runners who can do a sub 4 minute mile. Then in college it narrows down to the athletic scholarship kids; a few of them can do sub-4's. After that, the Olympians time trials, more post-college runners.

Shorter distances, maybe more condensed, more relying on natural talent.

wphamilton

I see - when I said " I remember when a 60 second quarter was an easy lap but that is not and can never be the case." it is in the context of MY running. I'm not running a 60 second quarter, period, because I am NOT a National class talent. Even though I remember it as a pretty easy lap.


Point being, if it's been years or decades it is not now the way you remember it. "Six in sixty" as my coach used to say may have been kind of fun at 18, when you're doing hard track workouts every day and ready to go again the next day, but anyone who thinks they can just take that up decades later, because "cycling intervals, hard is hard" is likely kidding himself.


There are similarities of course - you'll see similar gains in peak VO2 uptake, similar changes in fat metabolism. Differences in blood glucose levels, differences in capillary adaptations. Running generally produces more stress in more diverse systems. Running is more metabolically efficient believe it or not, which means you can produce more power running than cycling. Internal temperature control is different. I was hesitant to go into any of that because I'm sure that all of it will prompt arguments, but the simple "try it and see" should be sufficient to get the point across. My point there is, remembering what it was like just isn't going to be very accurate.

Lemond1985

Running is really, really, really hard. And runners are tough as nails. Running > Cycling. We get it.

Pay no mind to that cyclist sprinting past at 35 mph, the runner plodding along at 15 mph is actually producing "more power."

Rje58

Are there any statistics available that report the number of knee replacement surgeries performed on senior citizens who were regular runners (who didn't bike much, if any), versus the number of knee replacement surgeries performed on senior citizens who were regular cyclists (who didn't run much, if any) ?

Anecdotally, it seems to me that the people who run a lot have more knee problems, up to and including knee replacement surgery.

That's not to say that cycling is better than running, only that a balanced approach and consequences of specific actions should help us determine our own individual choices and course in life. The likely consequences to my knees and my back are things that I strongly consider, because both of those areas are so critical to quality of life, and because I've seen so many other people struggle and suffer with problems in those areas.

wphamilton

No, you don't get it. More power produced (among all of the other differences) means different physiological adaptations which is the point of this thread. Some of those differences are surely going to be related to cardio.

Trakhak

Bicycles are more energy-efficient than dragsters, which means that you can produce more power riding a bike than driving a dragster.

wphamilton

Which means that riding a bike produces more cardio adaptation than driving a dragster. You're starting to get it!

OBoile

I'm not sure why you're rolling your eyes here. This is pretty much common knowledge. And no one would say someone running at 15 mph is "plodding along".

OBoile

Cycling is, no doubt, easier on your body (until you crash that is). However, this is both good and bad.

The Good:
Less likely to get hurt.
Can ride for several hours without taxing your recovery ability too much, this allows for you to keep your HR up for a long time.

The Bad:
Doesn't strengthen your bones, tendons etc. because it doesn't stress them.

As with many things relating to the human body, some stress is generally good, but too much is bad. My parents have been runners for ~45 years. In general, they have been fine, and at age 70 they're still jogging regularly. My dad had one minor knee issue (small torn meniscus) that didn't happen while running about 10 years ago, but that is the only really major injury either one has had. The key was, they kept their mileage to a reasonable amount and they did other things as well. Many of their friends who ran 50-80 miles a week are now cyclists because they overdid it and got hurt.

texaspandj

I started training for triathlons in 1985. I started swimming, biking and running at the Same time. So I have no horse in this race. Admittedly I enjoy cycling the most. But I was cycling when I injured my knee. Adding to that is people who have never ran yet still needed a knee replacent. However, I was able to continue biking but couldn't run for a long while.
I think what we've proven here is triathletes make the best athletes

TimothyH

I tend to agree.

Gymnasts as well. The guys who do the rings are amazing.



-Tim-

gregf83 

I don't really know what your point is. Everyone accepts running is harder on the body than cycling and runners generally put in fewer training hours per week.

You're on a bike forum so most people here ride more than they run so running at any pace is likely to be painful.

Doing 12 1min intervals with 1min rest is not representative of what a 1 min all-out effort feels like. To do 12 with only 1 min rest would limit your efforts to around 75% of all-out.

Hermes

Below is the max one minute cycling effort.

McBTC

In S. Cali I've seen many >60 year old runners and definitely see all of them as on the tail of superior fitness compared to the general population but... giving all of them their well-deserved due, my feeling is that, going on 70 -- assuming I could perform at their level in a pair of running shoes -- I'd get more exercise cycling than running. My guess is, a dedicated training program that included swimming probably would be ideal and perhaps only swimming if cycling becomes impossible due to injuries that just won't heal up fast enough due to age... I've been struggling with a pulled goin and it feels like forever to heal when you're champing at the bit to resume your old schedule.

TimothyH

Running definitely takes less time and money.

Shoes, shorts and out the door. Done. Maybe some stretching but cyclists should do that too.

Anything over an hour is a very long session. Most decent runners can do a 10k in under an hour.

I've tried to replicate a runners high on the bike. The closest I've come is riding fixed gear but it isn't the same. I don't think it can be done on a bike with a freewheel.

Trail running at night with a headlamp is a blast.


-Tim-

wphamilton

You're in a BF thread that asks what the difference is in training adaptations for the heart. If most people here find running painful at any pace, they probably aren't right that there's no difference because "all out is the same".

If you want to know what *my* point is, go back to my first post. It's what everyone is arguing with, and I haven't said "it is harder on the body" because I don't necessarily believe that, if you're talking about injuries. More stress yes, which produces different training adaptations. That's what this thread is about.

It's more like 90%. You're not going to start it at 100% flat all out and hold the best you can for a minute unless you're training specifically sprints.

McBTC

Go going back to the original article, however accurate or inaccurate it may be, it was pointed out that the longevity of cyclists is greater than that of runners... They're definitely are trade offs and some of them are hard to calculate but perhaps, 'longevity' is the final arbiter. I don't know what the statistics are but as far as actually engaging in the sport, I can imagine that there probably are greater numbers of cyclists in old age than runners...

guachi

What made it so difficult in your estimation?

FrenchFit 

LOL, all the knee replacement buddies I can think of are or were cyclists. hardly scientific, but I know of no runners that have more than the periodic aches and pains. But truth be told, marketing and media got a lot of runners injured young by promoting bad practices and techniques. I think those of us that run, some running competitively in our 60s, somehow survived decades of indoctrination into stupid, stupid, stupid. (And, it's still out there.)

FrenchFit 

If this isn't the absolute truth! I added days of swimming laps each week, and the most dramatic after effect is I am starving. On top of that, I'm a long -term IF'er, so waiting around until 5pm to eat something becomes pure torture. Perhaps the trick is to swim in the am, then switch to running the afternoon to suppress that post-swim hunger.

Not to pile on, but after swimming and running, biking seems a bit tame and torturous. But, I am probably channeling some Dave Scott this year.

wphamilton

It's a good question and since I've already posted too much, here's my two cents on this. While it HAS long been thought that running produces more wear and tear on our joints (aka osteoarthritis) and it is still the prevailing common knowledge, there are strong indications otherwise. OA refers to generally "fluid accumulation, bony overgrowth, and loosening and weakness of muscles and tendons".


With regards to statistics, runners had a lower incidence of knee pain, minor OA and serious OA than non-runners (https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...1116094058.htm)


Here's another one, more recent https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27333572, mean age was 64, showing that runners had lower incidence of knee pain and knee problems than non-runners.


Are there more older cyclists than older runners, I don't know. But whenever numbers of cyclists comes up I tend to step back and consider triathletes - who are ALSO cyclists and whose numbers dwarf those of pure cyclists. So I'm a little skeptical that there are fewer older runners. Anecdotally, on my little stretch of shared path, my impression is about equal.