Who does a bit of running on the side?

I'm sure your base training for cycling has helped considerably when it comes to running. That was certainly my experience when I took up running in my 50s after years of cycling. As you are finding out, your cardiovascular fitness is up there but your running specific muscles need some help.

I don't think you need to go back to basics. I would suggest a combination of longer steady or tempo runs and shorter sessions of fartlek, sprint intervals and hill repetitions. Gradually build up the effort level and times of the speed work so you avoid injury or over-training.

If you have time to run twice a week, you could do one 15-minute speed session (with five minutes warming up before you push yourself) and one 30 minute steady running session. If you have time for a third run, you could try a 20-minute hilly run. Depending on how serious you are, you can increase the intensity week by week, and the distance. But don't do more than one hard speed session a week. This is the sort of pattern I try to follow if I've been in serious training for a race. Although life gets in the way and I've done plenty of races with minimal training. However, I find the more I train in a structured manner, the quicker I go.

Well it looks like these first couple of runs affected me a lot more than I thought. I went out on the bike today after running 6k on wed, my legs felt like they'd recovered (no aches anyway) but they were absolutely shot all the way around, especially on climbs. They felt so fatigued I could have held a conversation up every climb but my legs were on fire!

Now I'm not sure what to do, accept that this is going to happen for a while until my body gets used to the running or just jack in running and throw in an extra session on the turbo. :?

AK_jnr wrote:

Thanks

To be honest my achilles were on fire as soon as I finished. They were still a bit sore from last week as well lol.

I had better hop on the turbo and flush them out a bit!

In regards to training for 5 and 10k races has my base training for cycling helped or do I need to go back to basics for the running and do plenty of miles before adding intervals?

While im still injured with a broken scaphoid in each wrist I would like to split the training 50/50.

That's a great time you've done. If you're still relatively new to running the chances are you could improve a little more, unless you happened to have run the perfect race first time out.

For most runners there's quite a difference in attitude to 5K compared to 10K. The 5K is the lower limit of racing for most 'distance' runners. To be really good at it you need to do some pretty structured speed training - short timed reps over a measured distance, ideally a track or similar. When racing you're basically on the limit of bearable discomfort all the way and can't really 'settle' into a pace. Running style as well as fitness is important at that speed as well - something that, unless you're blessed with it, takes practice and won't be helped by cycle training.

With the 10K speed endurance comes into it, and so many distance runners find they can do better at it without regular (say twice weekly) interval sessions, but on a combination of relatively high overall mileage with some steady running in the mix. The pace of racing is obviously still demanding but it's more possible to find a bearable pace and hold it.

A good cycling base will help for both, more so for the 10K (I would say). Happy to provide any further suggestions from experience (I got down to 17 mins for the 5K but would have to work at getting there again!)