Riveting

As a non-runner I've only heard about the extended recovery time from marathons (compared to centuries), but isn't that due to the high impact pounding that the knees take as opposed to the energy expended?

My longest ride was 325 miles in 24 hours (mostly solo except for 2 hours at the end when a friend showed up to finish it with me, and let me draft at 19-20mph). For the next few days it felt like the front of my quads were stabbed with a Rambo knife, although oddly my sit spots were fine. Most people don't even like being awake for 24 hrs, let alone riding the whole time.

I don't think recovery time is a good criteria to compare marathons to centuries, since the impacts (high vs. low) are so different. What I want to see compared is likely the "sustained max/avg heart rate" of the athlete who has done a tough 3.5 hr marathon, and who has also done a tough 5 hr century with their avg. HR in the same zone for both events, and then see what the durations/paces of the two events were.

livedarklions

My centuries are all solo and never flat, and I think I work pretty hard to get them in under 6 hours. Congrats on being that fast, sincerely.

My ankles are too bad to even consider running a 5k, let alone a marathon so I really can't compare on the effort aspect of things. But I definitely think it is the general stress on the joints of running that makes the recovery time so much longer. Basically, marathon runners need to actually heal stuff afterwards, bicyclists, not so much.

And yeah, I've done 12 hour rides in a day and weekly centuries, and I'm pretty much like you in the pain department after a really long ride. My butt's fine, my quads are mad at me and are going to tell me about it. They can be achy for a couple days afterwards, but nothing debilitating, and I'll be able to ride the next day if I want to. Generally, though, my weekend routine is a solo century on Saturday and 50 miles on Sunday. No way would I be able to do something comparable in terms of hours running.

seypat

Not really. It's due to the muscles/body being fatigued. Sometimes, the soles of your feet get sore. I'm a fast twitcher, which means I'm also a cramper at endurance events. The hardest stretch for me, is from the finish line to the bag drop truck. Then from there to the car. Once I stop running, the leg cramps come on hard. If I'm driving from the event, I have to just sit stretched out somewhere still for 30-60 minutes with limited movement. Can't drive/operate the pedals. After that, I get up and walk to the car. Later that afternoon, I'll go to the gym and rotate sitting in the pool/hot tub. Take a few walks on Monday/Tuesday. By the next weekend I'm good to go. I only run fall marathons. I'm squarely in the ordinary time category that Happy Feet was talking about. The last 3 years, I've run 2 within 3 weeks of each other. This year it will be 3 within 5-6 weeks. That's the way it worked out. The first one will be virtual Boston Oct. 9/10. (I'm way too slow to qualify, but anyone could sign up for the virtual) Then the Marine Corps Marathon Oct. 29th.(it went virtual last week) Then the Richmond Marathon on Nov. 13th. The last one is always the fastest.

On the bike, I don't really cramp badly, except on this ride. Even with a 28t triple and a 28-30 big sprocket on the back , I cramp like clockwork on the 13-14 mile climb. Once on the first half and once before the top. The best I've ever done is one year when I was within 100 yards of the midway SAG. The fast twitch muscles can't take cranking away for 2 hours at a time. After that, I'm good for the rest of the ride. The 75 route wears me out more than the 100. The 100 gives you a chance to spin the legs out some. Once I get home, I can barely walk and can't run for 3 or 4 days. My legs are so stiiff/pumped/full of lactic acid that I have to go to the gym and swim. I also get on a stationary bike with no load and spin to get the lactic acid out. It takes about a week.

Where your knees/ankles will get sore is if the run is really flat with no terrain changes. Then your droning along using the same effort/cadence/muscles. You need some terrain changes every so often to change the body load.

https://www.ymcacva.org/100-miler-century

seypat

I actually took up cycling, then running in my mid 40's.........because I couldn't play basketball/court sports anymore. I have always swam. I got Plantar Fasciitis and couldn't get rid of it. I was an all arounder and played baseball/basketball at the college level. I had to quit that level after 2 years because of patella tendonitis. I kept playing at the rec level till I quit with not other injuries. The running cured the Plantar and no problems since then. I'm 56 now. 10 marathons and 50+ 1/2s, 10ks, etc. I looked at my data the other day. I've logged almost 6000 miles since I started running. The knees feel as good or better than when I gave up the court sports. In my case, the running/cycling/swimming has been good for my body. That being said, I am a mediocre endurance athlete at best.

Happy Feet

I don't get sore knees/ankles from running. I do get sore quads from hard runs. For about a year and a half I worked through calf issues but also had patella tracking issues from cycling.

The worst recovery issue I have ever experienced was from a long hill run and descent. The downhill portion taxed my quads so much they actually went into failure at the bottom. This was due to exvessive quad eccentric contraction, which my muscles were not fully prepared for. Would not hold me up. Schumers neck is a similar condition in cycling.

I walked around like I had two peg legs for a few days, hyperextending the knee so the joint would lock so I could walk, but there was no actual knee or ankle pain. That would be an injury and not a normal part of running.

PeteHski

Thinking about this more, I would tend to agree. I know there is often a difference seen in HR zones between running and cycling for any individual (running generally higher for same perceived effort), due to working more muscle groups. But I believe studies have shown that elite cyclists are able to achieve the same HR levels as elite runners. So it all comes down to what you specifically train for. A triathlete for example who may be focused mostly on running and swimming might struggle with raising their HR to the same level when on the bike vs running or swimming.

So there's a lot of individual bias going on here, which is not that surprising given what we know about physiological adaptation to stress from different activities and how specific that adaptation tends to be. It's why I can ride hard for a 100 miles without a break and yet struggle to run a single mile on the same legs!

DMC707

Running is weight bearing exercise, cycling is non weight bearing. Theres a reason i can run maybe 3 miles but can cycle 40 or so comfortably

But switch to a bike with some gears or cycling up and down steep hills with a single speed can contribute to ugly knees too

Wildwood 

……nobody would want pics of my vintage running shoes!


Besides, most of my bikes are so old that the effort to move a 22/23 pound bike is soooo huuuge, it must be closer to running effort expended.

edit: let’s see those old running shoes.

livedarklions

They're all hanging on phone lines.

ColonelSanders

I remember hearing Lance Armstrong say a few years ago that he does more running that cycling to stay fit these days, as the workout he gets from a 1 hr run, would take him 4 hrs on a bike.

How accurate was he being here? Maybe rather than a 1 to 4 ratio, it is more like 1 to 3.5ish.

But interesting perspective for sure.

canklecat

This year I've done at least as much running as cycling, especially earlier in the year. Strava says I'm spending about the same amount of time on each activity overall (about 135 hours on each so far in 2021). I'm just short of 600 miles running so far in 2021, usually 3-5 miles a few times a week and one 7-10 mile run on the weekend. I was aiming for a marathon by the end of 2021 but I'm not sure I'll reach that goal. Due to chronic neck and back pain from injuries I'm well below my usual time/mileage from previous years. I'd rather not add running related injuries to that so I may consider entering a half- marathon this autumn or winter.

Running feels much harder, although Strava's relative effort score seems rigged to favor cycling in difficulty. I don't have power meters for cycling or running but I suspect if I did for both activities it would more accurately reflect the greater difficulty I feel when running.

The nature of cycling makes it easier to vary our effort, from very easy to very difficult. Beyond around 14 mph wind resistance becomes a significant factor, more than weight, etc. Other than in a crit or time trial, hardly any cyclist is going full gas or nearly so for an hour or so.

With running it's always difficult. There's no easy gear in running. There's hard and degrees of harder. Especially on our roller coaster terrain -- there's no long stretch of flat road anywhere near me. There are school tracks but those are tedious and not available during the school year. It's difficult no matter how fast or slow you are, and wind resistance is relatively less of a factor, unless there's significant head or tail wind. Easy means walking. There's no coasting. Walking feels like giving up, unless you're doing Maffetone type training or something similar and need to walk to keep your heart rate in the target range. I do a lot of walking on some longer sessions because even slow jogging peaks my heart rate above the target range.

You're always moving your full body weight -- the only way to put in comparable effort cycling is to stand to pedal. You're swinging your arms and torso (although techniques vary considerably and many elite marathoners, especially the Kenyans and Ethiopians, minimize their upper body movement and tend to tuck in their arms and elbows, which most runners would find unnatural).

The 1:3 or 1:4 ratio sounds about right. Hard to compare because running and cycling use different muscles and techniques. I ended up changing my bike fit on two road bikes to better suit my improving conditioning from running, especially the calf strengthening -- mostly raising the saddles and scooting them forward, and pedaling toe-down a bit more than I used to.

But it's still difficult to compare because I've been cycling steadily for six years and only resumed running in January this year. It'll take me about a year to regain decent running form. If I continue with both running and cycling I might find the difficulty gap narrowing a bit in another year or so.

REV160

Rule of thumb for a better than average condition runner and cyclist is that running burns about 3 to 4x more calories per mile than does cycling.

AlanO

I won’t run unless the house is on fire so cycling wins.

burnthesheep

Note the ratio of bike vs run distance in a triathlon...........112 vs 26.2............is roughly equal to 4x. Well four and some change. Also, the ratio doesn't hold for time. Time wise most folks spend about 1.5x the time on the bike leg as the run. So a 4 hour marathon would be a 6 hour bike ride. The pros are so fast though that ratio skews as the air gets thick going so fast on the bike. They're finishing 1/2 IM bike legs under 2 hours and doing the 1/2 marathon runs in like 2:15.

velojym

The original question, for me anyway, is irrelevant. I hate running, and love bicycling.

PeteHski

I follow his Strava account and he appears to do a lot more biking (road and mtb) than running.

PeteHski

I see we are still going on about distance when comparing running vs cycling. Average running speed is what 6-7 mph? Average cycling speed on flat say 20 mph. So on a distance basis it's going to be about 3:1 or a bit higher. All that means is that wheels are more efficient than legs. Quite a good invention for land travel.

livedarklions

Is he doing shoe endorsements now?

For some reason, I don't trust that guy's motivations.

livedarklions

All other things being equal (flat terrain, no wind, etc.), you'll burn a lot more calories biking 20 miles in an hour than 15 miles in the same time.

Gyro

https://endurancefam.com/how-many-mi...-mile-running/

Make of it as you will.

RAFSteve1

Don't forget this great comic from the UK.
Eddie Izzard has raised over a quarter of a million pounds for charity after completing 32 marathons and performing 31 comedy gigs in just 31 days. The 58-year-old ran a marathon on a treadmill every day in January, followed by a "Best Of" comedy gig as part of a "Run For Hope".

Daniel4

I don't know of a lot of people who run not for the exercise.
Cyclists bike to commute, to travel, for recreation, to replace their cars for short errands and for exercise too.

Crankycrank

I've seen a few people riding these elliptical bikes where I live. Our Bikes | (elliptigo.com) Talked to a couple of them that were ex-runners and they had switched to these as a way to get a similar workout to running without damaging their knees/bodies. Definitely requires more effort and total body movement compared to bikes.

aclinjury

are we comparing running a marathon on a treadmill to running on the pavement? Running on the treadmill is not really running, you're just bounding off a band that is rolling under your feet.

bcstones

Cadence is the key. I remember, back in the 70s, University of Indiana had a top cycling team. Their coach had each member ride a Schwinn framed heavy-tired single speed bicycle at the cadence of 120, uphill or downhill or straight away. The week before the race, they rode their racing cycles again keeping a cadence of 120.
I don’t care about speed… far more important, is time & cadence. Ride out for a set time keeping a cadence, say 90 a good touring cadence, no matter what the terrain keep that cadence up (30 minutes out 30 minutes back, or whatever).
So, my suggestion is to get a multi-speed cycle…learn the shifting pattern of the gearing (cuz I’m an old time tourer, I prefer the “half step plus granny”…). Anyway, keep up the cadence no matter what gear you’re in for a set time, become more of a ‘spinner’ rather than a ‘masher’ (‘mashers’ have similar knee problems as runners)
Good Luck
(oh, and I’ll always recommend a “long based recumbent” like the Linear or Ryan, if you can find one)