I haven't been for a run in a long time, and I'm not quite ready to. But I need to get working on my cardiovascular system since that's arguably the most important part of your body during a marathon.
Last week, I got on the rowing machine, which was both satisfying and disappointing. This week—I just got home in fact—I went for a bike ride. Twenty miles, my first long one in a long time.
It was wonderful, and I learned a lot.
I averaged 17 miles per hour on this ride. I am shocked by this number. It's faster than I had any reasonable hope of going, especially when you look at everything I did wrong.
First, I was riding my utility bike. This thing is a 1992 Specialized Stumpjumper mountain bike I've converted to an urban utility bike. It's got 1¼-inch semi slick tires, a flat mountain-bike style bar with bolt on road-bike style drops. It's got a 1x7 drivetrain—1 chainring in the front, 7 gears in the back—with a mountain-bike index shifter up on the bar.
Basically, it's a bike with heavier-duty tires than a road-bike should have, the bars keep my hands wider apart than they'd be on a road bike. It effectively made me a sail. And moving my hands all around to shift gears made me appreciate index shifting—where the shifters are integrated into the brake levers—a lot more.
And the fact I was wearing a long sleeved cotton t-shirt and cargo shorts meant I wasn't a sail, but about three sails. And the iPhone in the cargo pocket kept banging into my knee. That was uncomfortable.
And then the wind. That's a major difference between running and cycling: the amount of air going past me. When I run, I don't really feel the air unless there's a breeze. Cycling, air is actually something of an enemy. In addition, if you're riding when I was, at dusk, the air gets pretty cold. I found myself wishing for a sweater-vest.
Another major difference between cycling and running is the ability to check out. When running, I can lose whole miles to non-thought. Some folks talk about a runner's high, but I think in terms of a runner's zen. Much harder to get that on a bike. The gears don't shift themselves, after all, and you have to pay attention to the road and drivers and similar.
And drivers: it's ok to turn your brights off for us cyclists. We'd even be grateful.
The last major difference I can think of is when I was running on the golf course, there were obviously no cars. There was a creek, though, and it'd get smelly. Still, I'd rather have the creek at the height of its smelliness than the cleanest gasoline-burning car as my road-mate.
Obviously, there's a lot I can do to have a better ride next time: put the phone into a canister that goes into a water bottle cage, wear closer-fitting shorts, and a base layer of wicking long-sleeve shirt with a t-shirt over it as a windbreaker.
Oh, and get a proper road bike.
Honestly, that I did as well as I did even though I stacked the deck against myself is pretty heartening. If I fixed all the stuff I just complained about, my average speed would go through the roof and I'd be a force to be reckoned with.
Also, it's brought me a step closer to where I need to be for my marathon.
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