if you're running 100k p/week, what's the cycling version of this? I'm sure i've read people saying that cycling's "worth" about a quarter, so is it 400km? Seems a lot..

If you were doing tri training, would you tend to do about 4x cycling as running? Does that sound right?

I'm starting a new mara training program and am looking to substitute some cycling time for some running time, partly for tri, and partly just to reduce my running load.. i'd look to max run 110k p/week and cycle 100k.. thats fine for now but wondering if i can reduce it a bit as the program gets into more quality work (at the now, just base building)...

As an experienced cyclist I personally would find 400K cycling a lot easier than 100K running. I've done cycling weeks of over 1100K, which would translate into running 275K - which would be extremely difficult.

If you assume that I am equally efficient at running and cycling, I average about 13-14km/h when running compared to 35-40km/h cycling. This translates into a 2.5x to 3x multiple.

My experience is that cycling places far less stress on the body and can be maintained for much longer.

Recovery times for cycling are also much shorter - its not too hard to cycle 200K+ and get up the next day and do the same - it would be harder to do back to back 70K+ runs.

cycling version is, that the blisters are on Your bum.


However if You wanna go into this area more seriously, I suggest, find Uncle Dave's post and click on the link to his blog and go there back in history, as he was doing lots of cycling stuff for fitness and also as a way to recover from serious knee surgery and return from it as a top ultrarunner, marathomn runner and distance runner generaly.

As purely a roadie, about 600kms is a good solid week for a B to A grader. Elites doing 600+

But triathletes don't do this much, it's more around 250kms to 300kms for ironman training, from experience, in both, for ironman in the 3 months pre race my riding week would be along the line of 50, 50, 30, 150-180 i.e 4 rides per week.

when do you get anytime to run?

god this ironman thing is starting to sound hard.

I didn't use to be able to do much running due to injuries, too much cycling can cause running injuiries maybe!?

Usually about 40-70(max)kms running a week, over 3-4 runs of: 8, 10, 10, 20-30 for example.

Plus 3 squads of 3kms to 4kms swimming.

But I would often race with the local cycle club on weekends as well, so this gets the Kms up, but I think coming from a cycling backgroung makes it easier to do this of course.....perhaps someone from a non-cycling backgroung who has done some IMs could let us know what their cycling training looked like.

My goal was always to go under 6 hours at IM on the bike however, some people's is just to get through the bike, so it all depends on what your goal is. So people who are very strong might scrape through with a <6 hour ride at IM on less, but most wouldn't.

Come on Tim, your little comment about "triathlons for people who can't runthat far" is sounding a little hollow now?!?

Back on topic

How long is a piece of string?
Ride wise there a few things to consider
1 your background, if you have a cycling background then getting more km up in training is a bit eaiser on the bike. However it is harder to get the 100km up on the run.
If you have a running background then the opposite is true as well.

2 Intensity, if you want to work hard enough on the bike then you don't need as many km to get the benefits. The challange here is what are you using the bike km for? If it's for recovery based exercise then it is different to if it is to help build aerobic fitness without the pounding on your legs and body.

3 placement, depending on the purpose of all the riding where you put in your training week will influnece how well you can do your run training sessions.

As for how people set this up for me my basic weekly structure looks something like this when training properly whether for Ironman or for a big event on the bike or run seperately.

Monday swim am ----ride pm 35-70km
Tuesday ride 70-100km am----run 7-21km quality session pm
Wednesday swim am----run 18-25km easy
Thursday ride 40-60km am------run quality interval session pm
Friday swim am
Saturday Ride 140-220km quality effort(key session for Ironman) run off bike 15-35km am
Sunday ride 2hrs easy or easy run 90min

This gives me about 285-450km per week on the bike with various levels of effort and about 65-95km per week on the run.
Keep in mind that this type of structur takes time to build to as when riding and running there is still a large degree of fatigue in your legs and this will pre-dispose you to running related injuries if you run to far to often or to hard.

10 years ago I was riding 500-700km/w and running 30-50k/w over this time as i have improved my training capacity the balance has shifted as I can tolerate more runnning now without injury. Also family time has caused my bike milaege to be dropped a bit when it is not required.

Train safe

it's terrific to have such considered opinions.. i didn't think there was so much to it!!

I guess if i have any background it is in running.. i've been running for 2+ years and did my first season of triathlon last year.. my priority is certainly running. I guess i'm looking at cycling to
a: improve my triathlon cycling (longest distance i'm looking at this season would probably be olympic)
b: supplement my running training by providing some less intense and stressful cardio
c: NOT to do so much cycling it interferes with my running..

given that i'm not going to drop my running k's to do any cycling it looks like i could afford to tack on some more cycling k's.. maybe getting up to 150-200 with some quality stuff not just steady state as i'm doing..

it looks like the weekend long ride will really bump up your mileage. I think for me it is something that my arms and ass need to work up to. My legs do not seem to mind. If you long run on the weekend it does make for a big weekend with 3hrs+ running and 6hrs+ riding.

then you have to hang out doing family stuff pretending you are not completely stuffed from all the running / riding.

I was blown away when at a CR drinks a few people told me that they have spent 30hrs a week training for the ironman. Wow that is more hours then i work each week.

Time wise anaysis:

5:00 min pace vs 30km/hr is a 1:3 ratio. Therefore it could be argued that 100k running =300k cycling.

For my first (and only) HIM, I aimed at trying to do an Iroman in training each week. This was about 11-12 hours. Later on I added another swim session as I wasn't making much progress on only 4k swimming a week.

All in all I got through the day but was underdone in all three disciplines (even the run). It was only my first season and I hope to do a little better this year on the same amount of training (i.e. not really enough).

It is my challenge to myself on how good I can go on a program of training that builds up to a 4 week block of training of 11-12 hours. We'll see how we go.

On the other hand, I can only imagine what kind of running PB's I could do if I did 11-12 hours of running each week

Doing a training load calculation would be a good way to compare:

TL = intensity (avg HR/max HR) * duration (in minutes)

Does anyone run and ride with a HRM on. I think from the few times I wore a HRM while cycling, I'd struggle to get it above 130 - average was probably 110, whereas I'd average 150 on a run. So that'd make it 1:21.6 minutes of cycling for every minute of running. From a purely CV perspective, that's probably accurate. That'd make it about 3 and a half hours of riding to bonk territory (2.5 hrs running), and in my experience that's spot on. But the difference is, after running to bonkdom, you're completely screwed, not going to recover for at least a day. But when you're cycling, you just need to get some food and fluids into you and you can keep going and not even be sore the day after.

Personally, I'd say 100k running = 600k cycling in terms of muscle fatigue. From an aerobic perspective, maybe 200k.

This just proves that you didn't work at equal loading o the bike compared to the run. This is common for people who do not have good cycle fitness even if they are fit.
I do all my training with a HRM and have done sessions with the following
15km run 59min 02sec at heart rate of 154
40km bike 1hr 04min 12sec at a heart rate of 154
This is E3 fro me. I have similiar numbers for different intensity zones. The main factor that the bike avoids is impact related muscle fatique and damage. However if you ride and run at the same intensity the fatique the bike produces is more sutble but no less important to be aware of.

The other thing you are ignoring here is your relevant max heart rate numbers if your max on the bike is 160 and on the run 193 then your working zones are different too. This is very common in single sport athletes. What ever sport you are most competent at you will acheive the highest max.
eg. Grant Hackett will get a higher max on the pool than on the bike or run
Cadel Evans will get a higher max on the bike than in the pool or run
Collis Birmingham will get a higher max on the run than in the pool or on the bike.

Craig Motram will be higher on the run but his numbers would be interesting to see compared to other triathletes % wise in the swim and bike.
Triathletes will have higher run then bike then swim max HR if all 3 sports are of similiat compentency levels. But new athletes to the sport will be highest in the background sport as above.

It is just a lot easier to cruise on the bike than it is to cruise on a run.

Train safe

Now Tim you know that Triathletes are the tough and strong ones.

Triathletes might use an ultra as a recovery. Nice easy run/walk like GNW.

Definitely true that I'm not bike fit, and I was just cruising in that example. But I don't think it matters what your relative max HR is for different sports. If you can only ever get up to 163 on a bike, then it's not going to be as strong a stress on your aerobic capacity. But you're right, it will matter in terms of soreness.

I think what I left out of my calculations was distance: In my example, I'd have to bike for 1.36 times as long to get the same workout and if I average 20kph (optimistic on my clunker) on the bike, I'd do 27.2km to get the same workout as an 11km run. That actually ends up being a similar ratio (247:1) to the results you got (40km/15km=2.667:1). So I'll take the average, and alter my equivalent to a 255km week on the bike.

One problem with cycling is it's easy to do it easy. Try 45mins in a big gear at a 90 cadence on a windtrainer and you'll be pretty knackered. Go cruising through the bush on your mtn bike for 2hrs and you can feel as fresh as a daisy.
My normal ride lately is just 70-90mins due to time constraints. I am working pretty hard throughout the first uphill half, have a 5min freewheel descent and then a mix of undulations the rest of the way. I would compare the workload to a run of 40-50mins. When you are running every step takes effort on the bike you get frequent little breaks in the effort. If work prevents me from riding outdoors I will put in 30-40 mins on the windtrainer and reckon this is closer to being = to the same amount of time running as you don't get any breaks in the effort. Boring as all hell though.

nothing scientific to my approach. I generally worked on the proportions of the Ironman distances (as per Burglar) to work out how many kms training should be devoted to each discipline. But I admittedly spent relatively more time on the bike as it's my weakest leg - and IMHO, the most important leg of the race.

As a result, I never really ran more than 70km in one week, and never biked much more than about 375km. Given that, I would think 450km-500km is the rough equivalent of 100km of running.

But as Pug mentioned, age-groupers training for Tris would be unlikely to complete a 100km run week. Run specialists would. And the same goes with biking. A cycling specialist would see 600km as a minimum week, and 700-800km would perhaps be the equivalent of a 100k run-week for someone training specifically in that discipline.

Interesting B+

Not exactly a maximum HR example, however, a friend of mine got a scietific test done and this was the results...

BIKE

E1 106-126 (Recovery/Easy)
E2a 126-138 (Comfortable)
E2b 138-150 (Comfortable/Uncomfortable)
E3 150-160 (Uncomfortable)
AT 160-170 (Stressful)
AT+ >170

RUN

E1 113-133
E2a 133-144
E2b 144-157
E3 157-167
AT 167-177
AT+ >177

So at every effort category the equivalent amount of effort was 7 BPM higher on the run than on the bike. This person is a much stronger cyclist than a runner. I am not sure what this means, however I find that the same amount of effort for me results in the HR on the bike also being about 7 BPM lower on the bike, and I am a weak cyclist compared to running.

My experience of riding is that I always need to calm myself down on the road as my HR often shoots up. On the other hand, on the wind trainer I feel like I have to work really hard to get the HR up at all.

My max HR on the bike always seemed to be 5-10 lower than running. I have read this is because riding is not fully weight bearing, don't know whether that's true or not. I don't have much trouble getting HR up on the windtrainer but then I usually am working hard from the outset as I find it boring.
Somebody told me that 40km bike/16km run should be similar times if you are evenly matched in both sports.

You use more muscles in running (eg. arms, core is more important), so there is more demand for oxygenated blood = more demand on the heart. It's the reason why cross country skiiers have the highest recorded VO2 maxes.

HR - lets start with the resting one.

Measure Your RHR in 3 different position :

lying horizontal on Your back
sitting in the chair
standing straight on the feet

just to avoid to argument of muscles working, make sure You are comfy in the chair with back support, and standing lens against the wall or something.


see if these 3 RHR are teh same or if there is a difference, that should give You a clue

so really, until i have a good way of measuring how hard i am working on the bike as oppossed to the run it's in fact very difficult, if not impossible, to really know what 100km of running is "worth" in terms of equivalent cycling, or vice versa... as a: each person depending on their background will be different, b: technique and intensity will have a huge affect, and c: it all has to be goal relevant as well..

I have to say, the more i cycle, the more i enjoy it.. for a while i just thought of it as an actitvity for failed or wannabe runners but it has an enjoyment and challenge different from running, just as appealinig in its own way (although i'd still rather run

Perceived effort, real effort , hours of effort, distance of and HR are all totally different indicators leading to different outcomes.

You can have many answers on this, but the dependent is the (your) energy cost whilst running vs energy cost cycling. The two are not only different but the rate of increase is quite a lot different as a function of increasing speed.

An example may be that running slow at low HR vs running fast at high HR over same distance may not have a great difference in energy used.
Doing the same for cycling could have you doing double energy for 40km/h vs 20km/h.

I would guessimate about 400km - 500km for cyclist who has been riding for a while.
maybe 300km for a newer rider.

don't flame me just an opinion.

Yeah forgot about that aspect.

I was about to post along the lines of WR for 1hour of each discipline which is ~2.6:1 & fits in nicely with bruncle & lebusqb earlier estimates but as you go faster on the bike you start to push a lot of air & I can imagine that at ~57km/h (sure this is approx what WR is for on road) it would be a lot!! If you were to pick longer time periods to compare where the bike rider came down in speed, & less effort expended in overcoming wind resistance, you would expect that ratio to get bigger.

Still doesn't take into account adjustment for the battering the body takes from running.

Hi All,

I am interested in those heartrate figures.

I have never found a definitive example for the heartrate zones for cycle training compared to running let alone swimming.

1. A easy run has me near or under 120bpm and a ride can be under 100bpm.
2. As for the working hard heart rate zones I can ride sections of a ride ( like a hill) in the 140s but cannot hold it ( though I ride in a hilly area) nor get above it too easily. As for running - no problems getting the heartrate up and holding it.

So it seems my HR zone gaps for slow effort are greater than for HR zones for harder effort.

cheers PLu

Swim – 9/3 of the event distance per week
Bike – 8/3 of the event distance per week
Run – 7/3 of the event distance per week

or for IM



Swim = 2.4 miles = 4220 yds x 9/3 = 12,660yds

Bike = 112 miles x 8/3 x 150% = 450 miles

Run = 26.2 x 7/3 = 60 miles


from here

http://www.qt2systems.com/Thoughts/critical.htm

Shows what I would think to be the same. I have only ever been over 90km running twice and 500km bike weeks are far easier. I would think something over 600 would be pretty close to a 100km run week. That said, I see no reason to do either. My staple ends up something like 8/300/60 which is 20ish hours before travel in IM mode. If I were to up the volume, I would alternate a 500km bike week(run say 20-25) with an 80km run week (bike 200ish) for 6-8 weeks keeping the 8km in the pool.

Everybody is different.

When I have been tested my numbers were different for the first 2 test in each sport. However when I was tested again my numders were
166 on the bike and 167 on the run at pretty much the same lactic acid levels. So this indicates for me that the load I can produce on my entire system is similiar whether on the bike or run.
I know of quite a few athletes where the 7 bpm theory holds true and this is probably not a bad number to use as it is btter to be slightly under in your work load calculations for running than slighty over as the risk of injury is higher.
I also know athletes who produce numbers that are up to 23 beats higher on the run than the bike.
So as I have said plenty of times get yourself tested if you are going to use this method as a training tool.

Train safe

Most of the information I've read on this subject suggests a good rule of thumb is 3k's on a bike = 1k running. Of course, terrain makes a big difference because runners don't coast down hill.

Come for a ride with me Jaker, I'll show you cyclists don't coast downhill either if they choose not to

what a reality check after reading all these posts!
Dont think ill ever get to the stage where i can complete an iron man!

Yes you can!! Training only gets ridiculous if you want to go fast. You can finish one on a lots less training than has been posted here. Its when you start to go "gee if I train a bit more I can knock 20minutes off or a lot more and knock an hour off" that it gets stupid....... But thats why we love it

Train safe

how many years would it take before a person could do an IM?

One

Train safe

How long is a piece of string? It's all relative....do you just want to finish, what's your back ground, what's your inherent level of ability, how badly do you want it?

I know people who have done it in 1 to 2 years of taking up triathlon, some just to finish, and others who've gone sub 10 and better!

Will did an ironman less than 1 year after he got a bike!

Still make excuses 24 years later

cheers PLu

1 year??
wow..i would love to do an IM in this life time. maybe if i can get through a years worth of training ill seriously consider it

depends.

just talking about it, then many many years.



I think there is a cut off.

Dec-1990 I did an olympic distance Tri (nepean) on my mtb
Feb-1991 I did a long course (canberra) on a borrowed racing bike
Nov-1991 I did the triplem ironman on my own 2nd hand cheapie racing bike ($400)

htfu and don't be put off by all the flash-gits with their flash gear.
I did one bike session per week 100km-180km - 6 hrs on saturday and a few swims per week. I was quite dedicated though.