Marathon coming up, bike or not bike during training?

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I know that Higdon recommends biking once a week in most of his marathon plans. 

what plan?  is that 2 a days or two days biking or ???  FWIW, I threw my bike under the bus for basically 5 months to qualify for and then run Boston.  Depending on what your plan says, focus on that and recovery if your goal is 310.  Make the runs quality, maybe throw in some spinning to mix it up.  Run frequency done correctly will help you more for the goal than tossing in some bike just because.

There was an article in the last Runner's World that showed virtually no performance difference between people that ran 5 days a week, and people that ran 3 days and cross-trained 2 days.  

Ride, man, Ride!

what performance levels are we talking here?  i think you will find a lot of top runners out there that are doing more frequency per week vs the 3 on, two cross train than this article states.  A triathlete as a non specialist is likely getting smoked by an upper level pure runner, and i say that as a pretty good runner for a triathlete.  personally i knocked off 25 mins in my 3rd mary for a BQ and feel i owe a lot of that to frequency.  I know different things work for different people, but I also think reality will show a lot of miles running generally go into getting fast enough to sniff the 3 hour level.

I think they've shown this at most levels - they were doing a piece about common running knowledge and how there are those that break with that and still achieve results. should be on their site.

I am one of those people that's used a 3 day a week running plan (the much maligned FIRST) with cross training and love it! Have had no problem keeping up the long distance and my paces have gotten dramatically faster I am mid packer and a girl but it's nothing to sneeze at.  I picked this because I was getting bored of running so much and this made the difference between me keeping sticking with it and getting burned out. If you like to ride and you'll miss it and if can build it in then by all means do some riding. 

As far as i know it's a preferred method of cross-training because it's non-impact so you can go harder on a bike for a session than you might with a recovery run or higher impact cross-training without getting too much in the way of your quality run sessions.

Edited by juniperjen 2009-08-26 10:16 AM

Joe Friel also advises crosstraining for a marathon by biking and swimming on recovery days.

I did a search and there were umpteen articles on cross training.  Any more details on the title or anything?  My last two winters were very different- the first, heavy bike focus with decent run volume, the second, high run frequency with very little cross training.  For me, not only did run times improve with the bigger run focus, but nagging injuries seemed lower.  My first two marys I was 3-4 days a week so it freaked me out to take on a plan with 6 days and then one with a rest day every two weeks.  However, I found from a running standpoint that frequency helped me absorb the punishment of the longer runs a lot better.  For kicks the first winter with the bike focus, I tried to see if aerobically I could throw down an 18 or so with maybe a long of 13 in there during that winter.  Aerobically I felt great but the biking didnt cross over necessarily for me and the legs were beaten up after going 19.  The question is the tone of the articles intent- if they are saying that it is possible to improve, thats one thing.  If they are saying that its optimal, thats another.  I dont know, just saying what I have seen personally and wondering how much top runners mix in other stuff in favor of run workouts.  But I am a volume disciple now, so yeah, i have a bias.