Summer Goals
I have decided to do some multi sport events. Well not many really. I have been wanting to try a biathlon for some time now and seeing that I am mixing up my training with lots of running, I think this is the year to do it. There is a biathlon on Memorial day so perhaps I will try that one. I have been doing some running every week for the past month mixed in with cycling. This Saturday there is a 5k run which I'm going to try. I don't remember if I have ever done one of these. I might have done one a long time ago but I don't know what my time was. So this will be almost a completely new experience with no bench marks to refer to. Let's see how it goes!
Natural
I think your body type makes biathlon a natural fit for you. You're lean. In my experience carrying any extra weight is tough on a runner. From that point of view you should have a head start.
Wow that takes me back. I did a triathlon years ago. I have two most poignant memories from the experience:
Needless to say, you have my respect for what you're doing.
Thxs
Thanks for the encouragement Mark. As far as body type, maybe so, but I am pretty sure I am predominantly fast twitch fiber for the most part. I have always been more inclined to sprinting than long distance. Sprinting comes much more naturally to me.
Check out my recent blog on the POSE running technique. I think this will help with the hurt a little bit.
way off topic....
The talk of running made me think of a conversation I heard the other day....
Someone was asking about single speeds....why do it? and what it is like? The cool answer that someone gave was that it is more like running and less like a machine with mechanical advantages. Want to go faster?...go faster. Want to go up hill?...work harder. It is fun, simple, and good overall body training.
Glad to see you will soon be competing again. I look forward to reading about it.
Similarities
Interesting observation (about the similarities). I'm going to try and blog more about this as the season progresses. One thing that struck me recently is that with running, there is the ability to adjust stride length which you don't have in cycling. When I do sprint workouts, I am using a very long stride. But when I run at long endurance pace, my stride is much shorter. Think about how different this is from cycling. The diameter of your pedal arms locks you into the same stride (for lack of a better term). So the muscle action is much more controlled in cycling.
And also, there is the possibility of improving your stride in running in a way that improves economy to a much greater extent (it would seem) than what you can do with pedaling. That's one reason why I am investigating the POSE technique.
I'm not at all trying to say that one sport is better than the other, it's just an observation. Something to think about for us data geeks!