I recently was diagnosed with a fractured foot from running about 20 miles a week. I know its not a ton, but just something to keep my in shape. Well he put me off of running for 6 weeks so I decided to do some cycling. I use an older steel framed bike that is a bit heavy, but I needed to try it out and see if I was going to enjoy biking or not.
My question is, where do I start at and how hard should I push myself? For the past 2 weeks I have been doing about 10 miles, 4 times a week, pretty much as hard as I can to sustain a feeling that I am accomplishing something. I am new to cycling so I don't know if this is considered a lot, or not much. I was told that this was to much, and that if I don't cut back and start slower I may hurt myself. But I feel if I dont' do at least what I'm doing now, I am getting no workout, and will not keep up my aerobic threshold for running. And besides normal fatigue of muscles, might there be any other pains or aches I will feel as someone who is a begining cyclist? Any suggestions or comments you guys might have would be great. Because the last thing I want to do is injure myself AGAIN.
In my opinion I don't think that you are biking too much too soon. I myself bike 23 miles 5 times a week, there are people who bike much more than me and people who bike less than me so its hard to say whats a lot. I think you can push as hard as you want as long as you arent straining yourself and that the only pain you have is from lactic acid (ex., not joint pain).
When I started cycling I used to get lower back pain, but once I took up running the pain went away, I guess the running strengthened it. Oh yea, depending on how efficient your bike may or may not be, you dont necessarily have to go fast to be working hard. Baseing workouts on how hard your working instead is fine. I myself currently have a stress fracture on my right lower fibula from overuse from running and I think the biking is great to help maitain aerobic capacity.
I dont really see injury from being new to cycling simply because there isnt the impacts you get from sports like running.. good luck getting better and have fun[img]cyclingforums.combiggrin.gifOpen ↗[/img]
