I have always seen my cyclist brothers and sister in endurance training on my long Sunday runs, but haven’t joined them until today. Today, I went out for a 37.5 mile jaunt through the Bowie and Davidsonville region with my neighbors. It was a glorious morning, starting at about 65 F and climbing to the low/mid 70s.
I thought I’d do well; I had the reservation that this is a different exercise and these guys could push me to my limit, but wow that was hard. They introduced me to hill climb repeats on steep country roads and tough road miles that made me respect the effort of a long bike when compared with a long run. The original plan for today was to run 1 hour at 15 seconds slower than my 10k pace (~7:15/mi).
The muscle tension/fatigue of biking is similar to that I feel 5k running. I am now a fan of cycling and will likely be purchasing a bike and joining my local cycling friends for many long rides.
Week 4 of Baltimore Marathon Training:
- Tuesday: Tempo run; ran 1 mile warmup, 6 mile tempo at marathon pace (8:00/mi), 1 mile cooldown. 8 miles in 1:07:55
- Wednesday: Easy run; 6 miles at easy pace with 5 strides. 6 miles is 53:19
- Thursday: Supposed to be hills training instead did Runervals 3.0, 5 miles in 48:27
- Friday: Easy run; 7 miles in 59:37 with 5 strides.
- Sunday: Supposed to be a 1-hour run at 10k-15s, switched to cross train road biking. 37.5 miles in 3:15 with 4 major hill climbs.
Summary:
Running – 26 miles in 3:44:20
Biking – 37.5 miles in 3:15
