Hello,
After 10+ years of one sport: running, I’ve been adding in some cycling. Historically my best race performances in running have come off of a fitness score around 65-70 and 2-3 workouts per week.
Now, I have added in cycling on easy days while maintaining 2-3 running workouts per week. My training is coming along well and workouts are progressing, but I haven’t raced in a while.
Has anyone had experience around how the fitness score corresponds to race performance across sports? I’m thinking if I eventually ratcheted my fitness score up to 80+ via run + bike(difficult to do off just running), and then sharpen up a few weeks with mostly running, if that could be enough to break through some former plateaus. Any insights would be appreciated. While I know “fitness” is just a quantitative measure of load, it has lined up quite well for my historical race performances. Thanks
That are some serious numbers for so few workouts, congrats. I’m sure adding biking will be useful - no matter what you do, higher base endurance always helps. I know of athletes who could not run more due to recovery problems and added running/ swimming to good success.
I read, but have not experienced, that biking and swimming transfer better to running than the other way round, so that’s good for you.
I assume you have good reasons not to do more running sessions? Even just going to 4 per week would be pretty massive I believe?
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Ah, sorry for the confusion.
I meant I’ve accumulated that fitness score off of 2-3 running workout days PLUS filling the week in with easy runs in the past. So a running “workout” Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday that would be something hard (LT, vo2, etc), and then just easy Zone 1 / Zone 2 running on the other days
Replacing most Easy runs by Easy cycling will allow accumulation of more time/load without overloading your legs by the running impact. Do keep one longer easy run per week or 2 weeks however, to continue training the running technique under fatigue.
The cardiovascular fitness acquired by cycling will help the running without increasing stress on your leg muscles and tendons.
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En mi experiencia combinando bici y corrida he visto que se puede mejorar mucho lo metabolico en la bici (capilarizacion, mitocondrias) pero al bajar las sesiones especificas de carrera se pierde adaptacion al impacto y los tendondes, no mucho pero se siente la carga a nivel muscular al correr.
Si estas entrenando para carreras largas la bici no va a conseguir sustituir del todo al fondo largo corriendo, pero si entrenas para carreras cortas te va a venir genial poder acumular 2 horas de aerobico o más sin matarte las piernas corriendo.