14th
Running is for criminals
Running is an important part of my prep phase each year. I typically start running in the early fall. Short jogs around the neighborhood, slowly building into hills and then making my way off-road to do some longer cross country running. 3-4k is all I can usually muster when I re-start each year, but I quickly build up to 20-25k per run pretty quickly.
I find that running really gets me extremely good results in a really short period of time. Not only does it really help me refine my cardiovascular capabilities, but I find that it really helps me “toughen up”.
Cycling is funny. Suffering comes regularly, but it is often brief. If you are properly prepared for a ride, it is rare to suffer for hours on end. Most of the pain associated with cycling comes from poor training, or brief forays to the edge - sprinting up a hill to beat the pack, turning up the heat at the front of the peleton, jumping on the pedals to catch the last wheel in the train. All of these will push you to the edge, but if you have what it takes, you know that the pain is temporary - that you can coast for a few seconds, draft behind someone or soft-pedal down the other side of the hill.
On the other hand, running has no such reprieve. There is no coast. If you stop moving your feet, you stop moving. Runners recover while running. Cyclists recover by resting. This adds up to a whole lot more hurt for runners than cyclists.
Running also punishes the body. Each foot strike brings the equivalent of four to five times your total body weight in force down on the joints in your legs and your feet. This creates huges stresses on the lower body that can only be overcome through regular safe training. I say safe, because it is really easy for runners to train unsafely. This leads to injury, and the sidelines. I injured myself more times in my first year of running than I ever have in all the other years of all my other sports (including high school football) combined - sprains, bruises, cramps, and eventually a stress fracture, were consistent companions during that first year.
It sounds harsh, but the stresses, handled properly, add up to some pretty serious cycling benefits. The stress of running puts a lot more pain to legs than cycling ever could. This lets me push bigger gears for longer periods of time. It also gives me the cardio to put money where my mouth is. I love nothing more than hitting rolling hills early in the spring and sling-shotting myself from peak to peak in 53-11 or 12. It takes a lot of heavy breathing and some seriously healthy legs to pull this off - but what I do during the winter, including some heavy doses of running, makes it so much easier to pull off.
So, while running may be for criminals, I bet that it makes them better bike thieves.
Posted at 22:56 - Comments (View)
