Ride Every runner who wants to get stronger should have... a bicycle?!

PEANUT BUTTER DEVOTEE

DECADE-LONG HEALTH/FITNESS REPORTER AND EDITOR; 15X HALF-MARATHONER

SAMANTHA LEFAVE

BEST RUN EVER A TECH-FREE SUNRISE RUN ACROSS THE BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS...

GO-TO RUNNING SHOES ASICS DYNAFLYTE 4

ADVICE FOR RUNNERS WHO RIDE DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE TRAINING POWER OF A SOLIDLY PROGRAMMED RIDE. FAVOURITE WAY TO CROSS-TRAIN CYCLING AND HIKING

INDOOR CYCLING ESSENTIAL PEARL IZUMI QUEST STUDIO SHOES + LULULEMON FAST AND FREE TIGHTS

EXERCISE PHILOSOPHY SHOW UP, WORK HARD, AND DO WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD.

HOW TO RIDE YOUR WAY TO A STRONGER RUN

WHEN TONY CHIN, 50, HAD BACK SURGERY IN 2017, he had already stopped training for races, thanks to an arthritic back and knees. Craving the cheers of a crowd and the thrill of a racing clock, he talked to his doctor about a training plan that would help his back heal and prep him for a return to the road that would last for years to come.

His doc’s solution: an indoor bike.

As a big fan of low-impact cross-training, Chin’s doctor had him running just twice per week – once on a track, and a weekend long run – and pedalling through five workouts on a Peloton while training for the 2019 California International Marathon.

“Indoor cycling helped me replicate the same cardio workout I needed from running in a low-impact way,” Chin says. Come race day, he crossed the finish line 15 minutes faster than in the five other marathons he had completed. “I could ride any time of day, lost 12 kilos, and I felt the best I had in years.” Chin isn’t the only one swapping his running shoes for cycling cleats. In the six months following March 2020, year-to-date sales of at-home fitness equipment increased to nearly 300 per cent of those from the prior 15 months, according to data research and analytics firm M Science, and Peloton reported a membership increase of 1.6 million since May 2020. Here’s how you, too, can get in on the indoor action.

• Why runners should ride inside As Chin learned himself, hopping in the saddle boosts your aerobic fitness without the impact of running, explains Meghan Kennihan, certified personal trainer and running and cycling coach in La Grange, Illinois. It also works complementary muscle groups – more quads and glutes in cycling; hamstrings and calves in running – so you build muscular strength and fix imbalances, reducing your risk of injury.

Of course, you can get all those benefits from an outdoor ride, but when you move indoors, you also eliminate some risk. “[A lot of] things can happen outside; your head has to be on a swivel looking for cars, people, dogs. Riding indoors removes all that,” says Matt Wilpers, certified personal trainer and Peloton Bike and Tread instructor.

Taking a virtual class is a bit like running on the treadmill: it puts all your metrics in front of you. Having that allows trainers to get very granular with athletes. “It’s basically like having someone in a laboratory with all the variables isolated,” Wilpers says. “When that happens, we can get really specific with training, giving us the ability to get very specific results.” And if there’s a leaderboard (à la Peloton’s popular class structure, or Apple’s Fitness+ Burn Bar), there’s a burst of extra motivation to compete.

Plus, as everyone around you battles for a slice of your time, there’s the convenience of being able to squeeze in a more intense workout in a shorter period. Unlike riding outdoors, “you don’t have to wait for a hill, you just change the tension,” Kennihan says. “You don’t have to slow down for traffic lights or coast on a downhill. You can do short sprints in or out of the saddle to spike your heart rate and build speed.”

• How to rework your routine To best incorporate riding into a running plan, Wilpers operates by one golden rule: all your

quality workouts should be in your sport of choice. So if you’re training for a race, you need to clock those important workouts – the speed sessions, the long runs – on your feet, rather than in the saddle.

Wilpers says those moments aren’t just improving your fitness; they’re also building the biomechanics of running fast. So cycling should be supplemental, helping to build volume and base work at a low intensity. An easy strategy is to replace recovery runs and easy runs with indoor cycling sessions.

But few rides should be arduous climbs up virtual mountains. “I always tell runners: cadence high, and resistance low,” Wilpers says. “When you do that, you’re putting more work on your cardiovascular system, which is what you want to develop as a runner on the bike, versus muscular strain and stress.” If you did the opposite, you’d build more biomechanical efficiencies for cycling, which is not the end goal.

The exception: injury-prone runners like Chin. Given his arthritic back and knees, the emphasis on indoor cycling – and choosing the right classes throughout his training – allowed him to get aggressive on the bike in a way he couldn’t on the road, in turn improving his running while minimising the risk of further injury. Peloton’s Power Zone and Heart Rate Endurance rides, for example, helped him maintain a sustainable heart-rate zone similar to his running, while the HIIT and Climb classes built strength and power to tick the kays off faster.

Because indoor cycling workouts are lower impact, but can be higher intensity, start slowly and build up your endurance. If you’re used to running for an hour, don’t jump right into a 60-minute cycling session. Start with a 30-minute ride to see how it feels. You’ll need to give your body and mind time to adjust to the new modality. Over time, you can make small increases to your ride time, the same way you slowly build up your weekly mileage when training for a race.

Keep in mind this really only applies if you’re training. If you’re simply running and riding to avoid injury and maintain both your physical and mental health, Kennihan says your main focus should be fun. “What kind of rides do you enjoy? Hills? Intervals? Mix it up and find the rides that are most exciting for you.”

TRAINING

POPULAR INDOOR BIKES

3 / TACX NEO 2T SMART TRAINER Connect your bike and open up a whole new world of cycling fun.

R26 999

1 / WAHOO KICKR Pretty much adjustable for any size and shape, and compatible with all indoor platforms.

R74 999

2 / WATTBIKE NUCLEUS The bike that started the indoor cycling revolution; it helps you connect and train via the touchscreen.

+-R70 000