A 3 Hour Tour

Since I decided to stay off my toe for a couple weeks, I've been biking quite a lot to keep my legs and heart from dropping too far out of shape. I'd mostly been doing 30 minute to 1.5 hour rides of 13 to 30ish miles, but last weekend I decided to go for a 50 mile ride, since I should be running about 3 hours if I was training normally for the marathon. Here's what I learned about the differences between biking and running for 3 hours:

1. Biking makes my legs tired faster, but they are less tired at the end.
2. Biking does raise your heart rate significantly, but not quite as much as running
3. Running is WAY hotter than biking. There's so much more wind when I bike that I hardly sweat at all. When I run I'm soaked after a couple miles.
4. Half of running really far is about your body holding together: joints, feet, etc. This isn't much of a problem with biking.
5. I hate getting passed on my bike even more than when I'm running.

The 50 miles took me right around 3 hours to complete, and I was feeling good because nobody passed me during the ride. There were heavy rains off and on during the ride, so that's probably why there weren't a lot of other bikers around. Once I got soaked, I figured there was no point in stopping, so I just kept going until I finished. I've found biking to be more enjoyable then running in many ways (I like the speed, and not getting passed as often) but finishing a long bike ride doesn't come with the same feeling of accomplishment as a long run. I think this difference originates from the fact that reducing speed slightly on a bike results in a far less strenuous workout, whereas running slowly doesn't necessarily help that much. I could bike 50 miles at 10 mph without even feeling like I was working. If I ran 3 miles at an 11 minute pace, I would still break a sweat.

My toe has been feeling a bit better lately, so I went on my first run in a few weeks a couple days ago. A 7 miler at a slowish pace. It went alright... I couldn't believe how fast I got sweaty and hot compared to biking. (It was 85 degrees and 60 some percent humidity.) If the toe feels ok I will keep doing some moderate runs, and perhaps bike after the runs to increase the duration of my workouts without pounding out too many miles on my feet.