Saturday, February 14, 2009

Biking to Running

I did my first workout so far where I went directly from biking (ok, spin) to running. I thought I would be fatigued and it would be tough. But, it was actually a different kind of tough than I was expecting. Aerobically, it was fine, no biggie. But, since you use different leg muscles to bike, the running was really strange.

I did 45 minutes of spin which totally kills my quads and hamstrings and then went right into a 3 mile run. It took a whole mile for my legs to loosen up. I was really having trouble turning them over. I didn't want to run fast for obvious reasons. But, I also didn't want to just "jog" the whole three either. At the end of the first mile, my legs didn't feel as bad and I was able to pick up the pace and finish the other two miles at a nice average clip.

I'm curious though... I'm hoping that the more I do this, the less that transition affects me. If it takes me a mile to get started "running" in the race, that's gonna be a problem. I'm over 3 months away from the race though... so I've got plenty of time to find that out.

2 comments:

stevespeirs said...

Practice, practice, practice.

In the summer, I used to set up my bike on a trainer on the outside deck, spin for 10 minutes, jump off and run a half mile loop around the neighborhood. Back at the house, I'd jump back on the bike for 10 minutes, hop off and run the loop again. Repeat 4 or 5 times for a great BRICK (common name for a bike/run workout)

The legs will definitely get used to it and the more you practice, the bigger the advantage you'll have over your competitors on race day.

Good luck and have fun with the BRICKS!

--Steve

Eric Gervase said...

Thanks Steve... That's definitely what my legs felt like when I got off the bike (bricks). I'll have to give that a try.

BRICKS... Another geeky term that I'm gonna love using.