Cycle to a marathon

baza1976

I signed up for my 3rd connemarathon a number of weeks back and since then I'm tying with the idea of cycling to the marathon. It probably would involve going up the day before to collect number and stuff and then cycling up that morning to galway city to get the bus out. Or cycle up the day before and stay over night. oh, I want to cycle back home again.

I'm also planning on doing cork marathon and would like to cycle to that too.

What ye think??? Would anyone for the limerick/tipp/clare area be up for this??? I wouldn't mind the company.
Also any advice on such a thing would be grateful.

PS don't tell Mrs Baza. She already thinks I'm bonkers.

edit: Sorry mods I just realised I have probably put this in the wrong forum........... great start

mod edit: Moved to main forum

Krusty_Clown

You don't really mention the distance you're planning on travelling, to get to the marathon. I would imagine anything longer than 45 minutes is going to be detrimental to your marathon performance, but it really depends on how much effort you put into the cycle on the day. Are you planning on hitting a PB?

baza1976

It would be about 70miles each way. As for a PB I wouldn't be expecting one in Connemara. I just like the idea of the challange to cylce a long distance run the marathon then cycle home.

Killerz

Pretty cool idea - I like the thoughts of getting to a marathon under your own steam. I have toyed with the idea (a good bit off in the future I must add) of running and/or cycling to a marathon a bit further away, taking a couple of weeks or so to get there. In effect the marathon just becomes the icing on the cake at the end of an epic adventure.... eg running to the London Marathon from Holyhead/ Fishguard, taking 2/3 weeks at it, running 15-25 miles a day (or going for a shorter period alternating with the bike), capping it with the London Marathon. That kind of idea....

There was a participant in the Toronto Marathon who used a cross-trainer bike-type thing to travel from Chicago to Toronto before doing the marathon in Toronto.

I can't really offer you any answers to your question, except to say go for it and good luck with your venture!

Cabaal

What kind of miles are you putting in on the bike at present?

If your not doing any sort of decent miles then its likely to really affect the marathon time/performance.

Killmurf

I would agree with Cabaal, you would need to have a fair bit of cycling in your legs to try this.

Could you try something like a 50 mile cycle before one of your LSR over the next few weeks, to see how it goes? It would give a good idea of what is involved and how the cycle will affect your legs.

baza1976

At the moment I cycle to work and home again. In these dark evenings that’s 18 miles in total. In brighter times I can travel main road which reduces it to 16 miles.

I was thinking of taking a long spin before some lsr was the way to go along with keeping up the commute.

Cabaal

baza1976 wrote: »

At the moment I cycle to work and home again. In these dark evenings that’s 18 miles in total. In brighter times I can travel main road which reduces it to 16 miles.

I was thinking of taking a long spin before some lsr was the way to go along with keeping up the commute.

You'd want to be putting in more miles then that as your aiming to do a 70 mile spin, perhaps add in a long spin at the weekend say starting at about 30miles (around 50km) and upping it bit by bit with the aim of getting a few 70miles in before you actually plan on doing it.

Come the brighter mornings (damn country roads) I'm going to be aiming to commute to work at 35miles each way (70miles today a day) but even at that I still wouldn't consider doing 70mile spin before a marathon unless I was really really used to the long spins and even at that I'd still likely first do it the day before just in case.

Just my 2c

Krusty_Clown

Well, if the marathon is just part of the adventure, rather than the 'A' goal, it's certainly achievable (I would imagine; having not tried anything like that before!). Certainly others will have done it before, as it would correspond to Ironman distances without the swim (and an extra cycle home for the warm-down!). Why don't you try and fit in a 2.4 mile swim in Galway Bay, while you're there?!

baza1976

Cabaal wrote: »

You'd want to be putting in more miles then that as your aiming to do a 70 mile spin, perhaps add in a long spin at the weekend say starting at about 30miles (around 50km) and upping it bit by bit with the aim of getting a few 70miles in before you actually plan on doing it.

Come the brighter mornings (damn country roads) I'm going to be aiming to commute to work at 35miles each way (70miles today a day) but even at that I still wouldn't consider doing 70mile spin before a marathon unless I was really really used to the long spins and even at that I'd still likely first do it the day before just in case.

Just my 2c

Thanks, yeah I think you making sense. It's not too different from wht I thought to be honest.

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Well, if the marathon is just part of the adventure, rather than the 'A' goal, it's certainly achievable (I would imagine; having not tried anything like that before!). Certainly others will have done it before, as it would correspond to Ironman distances without the swim (and an extra cycle home for the warm-down!). Why don't you try and fit in a 2.4 mile swim in Galway Bay, while you're there?!

I can't swin, but that isn't stopping me thinking about the english channel in a couple of years time;)

I think I'm going to go for it. I'll aim for it over the next few weeks and see how I'm holding up. Any more info or advice won't go unheeded.

Thanks
B

airscotty

Just do an ironman....at least that way you wont have 2 explain to everyone why you did'nt do a quicker marathon time.

shotgunmcos

Feic the begrudgers

My OH may be signing up to the Conn Half or Marathon with a mate of hers. If so I may be on for cycling up from Limerick and trotting around with them.... Or driving up and cycling back, I dunno about 2 ways though

Seriously as the lads said though, you would want to be very comfortable having your bum on the saddle for 5 hours , on your feet for 4-5 hours and on the saddle again for 5 hours all on consequitive days. Tough ask.

pgibbo

Sounds like a whacky but cool idea.

Would you be cycling back straight after the marathon? If so, you would want to be well lit up. I wouldn't fancy cycling the Galway-Limerick road once it gets dark.

kennyb3

I would defo think about cycling only one way (or at least cycling up the day before).

I think if you were really serious about doing both ways, you d have to treat it like an ironman as such and train and fuel accordingly.

I dont see that you ve time (this year) to build up to 224km of cyling on top of a 42.2k run in a single day based on your current volume.

TFBubendorfer

Whacky idea is right.

The closest I have come to that is cycling 5 miles into town, catch a bus, walk a bit over a mile to the marathon sign-up, run the marathon (and a bit extra) and then do the same journey in reverse on the way home.

BUT, the marathon was strictly a training run. I wouldn't even dream of doing even one mile of cycling (or any other exercise) before an important marathon race.

If you're just doing it for the sheer fun of it or to punish yourself for some unspecified sins then go ahead and be sure to let us know how you got on.

a123

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Feic the begrudgers

My OH may be signing up to the Conn Half or Marathon with a mate of hers. If so I may be on for cycling up from Limerick and trotting around with them.... Or driving up and cycling back, I dunno about 2 ways though

Entries for Conn set to be closed within the next 24hrs at the latest, so if they are thinking of doing it, they would want to decide quickly;) You too of course!

baza1976

pgibbo wrote: »

Sounds like a whacky but cool idea.

Would you be cycling back straight after the marathon? If so, you would want to be well lit up. I wouldn't fancy cycling the Galway-Limerick road once it gets dark.

Yeah, I would like to. I reckon I'd be finished before 12 or around that time. Some I should be more than all the way home before dusk. It's travelling up that morning is where I may be in the dark for a bit. I travel to work on small country roads but I'm pretty well lit up with head torch front and back lights plus hi viz.

Thanks to everyone for their response. It's all good info