I learned a very interesting thing this weekend. It seems that the normal everyday leg, the standard issue eq that comes with the human package has some funny features. Seems that the muscles used to ride your bike, yea those are totally different then the ones you use to run with. A fact I found out when I foolishly signed up and ran in a 5k race.
I knew it was bad when the 11 year olds were kicking my ass near the end of the course. I had been chasing this little speed demon for the whole race and at the end, well lets say it was embarrassing how far ahead of me he was. It was a symphony of bad moves, I had shown up late and not gotten a warm up run in. Didn’t stretch after, and spent the next three hours standing in more or less the same spot. Pain, let me tell you about it.
It hurts to walk, it hurts to sit, it hurts to stand, or move. If I was foolish enough to run it would hurt to do that as well. Get me on a bike however and I feel alive. No pain, I can move, I can go fast, I can pedal hard, dodge cars, you name it. It is amazing, like one second I am hardly able to walk, the next I am tearing it up at 25 mph down the road. When I am on my bike I feel like a cyberneticly enhanced creature. Better faster stronger.
I have been drinking lots of water, eating some bananas, and stretching. The soreness is starting to go away, but It’s still no fun to walk. Let this be a lesson to you all, never ever, ever, run when you can ride instead.
As an avid biker, I’ve come to find that somehow the muscles used for biking have only one major overlap with muscles used for everyday activities: your quads walking down stairs. I can bike for hours, and then walk around with no problem until I have to descend stairs, and then I end up limping down and hanging on the stair rail for dear life.
So yeah, there’s no connection between biking and running/walking.