Am I on a collision course with injury?
 

The Cross country (running) season started a few weeks ago, and I haven't gone for a ride since. I get one day off per week, and I was thinking I could ride then. Do you think that if I just ride once per week, that I will injure myself?

I'm thinking that I will keep them in the 30-40 mile range, and I don't expect to get that much in shape, but I am afraid to lose my "seat" and the benifits I got this summer.

the question is, am I gonna injure myself this way?

I take it you mean you run cross country 6 days a week and on you're day off you want to ride your bike. The only problem I could see with this is you really need a day of rest. Listen to you're body and see what it tells you. Are you going to be pushing you're self hard on these weekly rides? Or just take a nice leisurely ride?

I do the same thing, run six days, ride one...... hopefully it won't hurt me. I ran at a race today and I was soooooooo angry. I wanted to get under 19, but I got 19:01!!!!!!!!!

once per week? 30-40 mile ride? that's no problem at all... in fact that's all i did all last year... run during the week and ride on saturdays.

I probably wouldn't be pushing it...16-18 mph is about all I average. I just like the feeling of being on the bike, moving smoothly and swiftly through the woods...you know.

yikes, I know what you mean...in freshman year, I was trying to get under 21, but ended up getting a 21:02...needless to say, i was kinda annoyed.

not to brag, but I finally broke 19 last year(junior year) with an 18:55. However, an injury ovver the summer caused me to lose valuable training time. I ran a miserable 19:40 this past wednesday. yuck.

If you're in training, you do your body more harm than good if you don't take a day off for rest. If you're training intensely, you'll need two days off.

It's all about training smarter, not training harder. Training harder will only end up breaking you in the long run- you'll have a difficult time breaking 19 if you break your body first! So take the rest day, don't cycle. If anything, if you're running 5- 6 days a week, take one of those days and make it a cycling day rather than a running day. It will help you to develop the muscles in the body more fully that you don't use for running, it'll give your joints a break from the pounding you do when you're running, and it will help to keep your cycling alive, which is always a good thing.

One thing I find sad is that the majority of people who call themselves "training" aren't truly training- they're just going full out with no rhyme or reason to their training. Training is more than about working towards a goal- it's about working towards achieving a goal. If you're working out in a helter-skelter, haphazard manner, you're not really working towards achieving your goal- you're just working.

Learn to train smart- put together a smart periodization program that progresses as you progress, where you can work on building a good, solid aerobic base, then progressively increase your intensity and peak for your races. If you can do this, you should be able to look towards breaking 17, and you'll be looking back and laughing at the days when you were trying to break 19. Aren't you wondering why you had an injury over the summer? I can guess what the most likely cause of that injury was....

If you want, you can also PM me in November, and we can set up a year long training program.

Koffee

yeah, it's not really that the cycling is bad - it's not really like running where you have to "break-in" your body to ride... you can get on the bike and hammer out a hundred miles and your joints and all should be ok (your BUTT might hurt)... so in this way it's fine. --- but "injury" is not really the issue

also, as crosstraining biking is great...

but as Kev and Koffee said -- the problem is that you DO need at least one rest day per week. --- so the potential danger is REDUCING your performance because of lack of recovery...

i would recommend either:
1) find some way to ride on one of the other days before or after you run - it might be harder to do and hard to fit in timewise, but this way you still get good solid recovery --- one of the biggest mistakes made by athletes is too little recovery and the young are the worst (i thought recovery was a non-issue and waste for years and i could have been so much better!)
2) if you positively can only ride on your "off" day... i'm not an expert here, but i would say the muscular action is OK, but you want to give the heart a FULL rest. just make sure to ride easy - if you have a HR monitor try and stay way low - say under 130 (depending on your max/LT) -- or just spin and go easy.

P.S. is that really good for you to run SIX days a week? i never ran track, but man that's rough for the joints (i started developing knee and back problems at 27 from too much running and had to cut back) --- then again, maybe that's standard fair. but _I_ would run 5 days, cycle hard 1 day (virtually same cardio benefits, maybe more as you can go longer + xtraining benefits + easier on joints... but then i'm not a coach, trainer or even a "real" runner...

Well, riding once per week should not be a problem. Remember though, your muscles are not really cycling ready so don't expect high performance just go out and have fun.

Now the other thing is do you need a day off?

Now I know a lot of people out there a really into the notion that one has to have a day off once per week. I think it depends on the person and possibly their riding style.

I have done fine and I very rarely take a day off. Riding daily just seems to suit me. Usually the weekends are a bit more intense and I back off on Monday. But I actually seem to do better doing an easy ride vs not riding at all.

Of course, if you are a no pain no gain fanatic, taking a day off or even two days off might be a good idea.

well, six days a week is pretty common for most cross-country atheletes, and actually, the training program that our coach gives us is pretty sophisticated. its not like we are training hard every day, there are days that are deathlike (2mile warmup 4x1mile @ 5:40 pace, then 4x300 on a hill, 2 mile cooldown) but there are rest days, that are only like 45 minutes (6 miles) so its not I am going all out every day. I'm actually supposd to be running 7 days a week, with sunday being one of the rest days, 6 miles, or sometimes a long run (12 miles) at an easy pace.

I actually find that i do worse the day after I take off withour doing any physical activity. anyone notice that?

Edit: why can't i spell "that"?