Bike (Read 1371 times)

OK, Mr. Eight Marathons Last Year, you'll be pleased to know that the only muscles that you'll use the same way on the bike are your heart and your diaphragm! There's just no good way to equate running and biking, and "they" say that, if you bike 8 hours a week, it'll take three years to reach the best fitness you can reach by biking 8 hours a week (in other words, to improve from there, you'll have to add more riding time). I'd guess that your cardiovascular fitness is such that a heart rate monitor wouldn't do much for you until you get some bike-specific strength. My comfortable training pace, which I can maintain pretty easily and carry on a decent conversation, is roughly 18 mph. My solo rides typically average anywhere from 16-19 miles an hour; for the 100 mile ride I did end of July, I averaged 17. I have run zero marathons, but I do have 27" quads. YMMV. I never really shoot for a pace; I find that just going by feel works just fine - and you can totally change one portion of a ride without messing up the rest of it. It takes me a solid 10 miles to feel warmed-up; then, almost anything goes - continue loafing along, go find some hills and see if I can get my heart to explode, chase cars, go long, hold a tempo, try to get lost, whatever. My suggestion would be to focus on being smooth and relaxed on the bike. Keep your cadence up - shoot for 90-100 rpm - and pick your gear to set your effort level. Mostly, though, just have fun. Everything else will take care of itself. did

Thanks! Did I mention, my legs felt WEIRD when I got off the thing?!?

The whack thing about biking is that, despite being generally less intense than running, you can ride yourself further into exhaustion than you can run yourself. Eventually, running, you'll just fall over. You can bike beyond that point, since your legs aren't holding you up. Come to a complete stop, and you just sort of turn into a puddle - it's like your bones stop working. Keep it up, and join a group ride. It's a whole new world, tucking into a draft and realizing you're going 24 mph and having to soft-pedal to keep from gettin' way too intimate with the person in front of you. Oohhh, and then there's a stop-sign sprint... did

Is that you?

Stop sign sprint? I can see getting so weary that you melt without knowing it. Running is the opposite. Often while running my legs won't go any more even thought I know something is left... I still have to figure out the gears.

MUST.BE.FIRST.TO.RANDOM.SIGN.AHEAD!!!! AIIIIEEEEEEEYYAAAGHA! Top gear, head down, butt up, legs cranking, try to hold a draft and then slingshot by at the last moment at 37 mph for HONOR AND GLORY!!!! It'll take you longer to wipe the grin off your face than it'll take you to recover from the effort. did