How registering for Unicon made me start running

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When I registered for Unicon, and ticked the “elite” category for cross country, I decided that I needed to start working on my endurance - because “elite” didn’t really describe my fitness level at that point. Since I don’t have mountains around, I find really seriously stressing my cardiovascular system on a unicycle quite hard. It’s certainly possible, but it either means riding distances on the 36" - which I’m not that into, or riding up one of 3 roughly 400m long uphill sections repeatedly -which I also don’t really like.

But what I always have liked in some capacity is running. It’s also super easy to find ideas for training plans ranging from super beginner to elite athlete, tips for workouts and answers to pretty much any question you may have online. You also have to do zero explaining to anyone when you tell them you are going for a run, so overall the total opposite of unicycling. So with that, I made myself a rough training plan, 2 sessions a week, one V02 max/speed training, one more aimed at base endurance. Initially I was planning to keep that until shortly before unicon, and then doing a lot more training on the unicycle. (Of course I didn’t stop unicycling for that time, but my rides were all just fun, with 0 planning, and my idea was to do more focussed practice on the unicycle closer to Unicon)

Well, with Unicon being postponed, travelling to interesting places to ride being hard (I got to ride in different places and with different riders 3 times this year), I got a bit tired of my trails, and the energy I normally put into unicycling somehow ended up being put into running. I mean I still rode my muni 1-2 times a week, but if you have 20 (pretty generous estimate) very short trails to choose from, my excitement isn’t all that big.

Anyway, long story short, while unicycling is my “primary” sport, running is now a thing I do - and since I followed a training plan for most of this year (that I wrote myself) I’m fitter than ever. It’s funny, exercise has always been a big part of my life - but actually setting fitness goals and structuring my training towards those is completely new. And while I still don’t want to structure it too much, actually having a plan has helped a lot. Running a sub 2 hour half marathon was something that last december I thought “maybe I’ll do that in a race next year”, turns out for a few weeks this year (during a pretty intense training block), it was something I did on thursday mornings, and as only the second longest run that week.

Any other runners here? Did you also find the endurance carries over to unicycling? Or anyone that knows about strength training? - I want to focus and structure my strength and conditioning (another thing that I’ve always done a bit, but never really focussed on) this winter, while I’ll lower the volume of running per week.

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Good on you!
I started doing some running. I sprained my ankle coming off a giraffe uni at the end of February,
had surgery.
Once I had recovered from that, I figured my cardio really sucked just going up an easy hill on a uni.

So I started doing some running of the hill next to my house. I don’t do it nearly enough, but it was really to lift my cardio capability for unicycling for hills. The first few times I was nearly dying* from it, and my body was incredibly sore for days after doing it the first time! (Particularly my quads… so bloody painful!)

I also do aerial tissue and you need some cardio for that, but I think the running is where it really comes from.

*not literally, but you know what I mean

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I used to run on the same trails that now I unicycle on. Now that I am over 50, I figure I should just give my knees and hips a break. A couple weeks ago, I decided to race some fifth graders around the field a couple times. I ended up being beaten by the son of the HS cross country coach. Little bastard! One thing about unicycling: There is a more limited range of leg motion. I felt tight while running. I probably won’t start running again, but I could certainly benefit from some stretching / yoga!

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I’ve been dabbling with running during 2020 and wow, it’s easy to hurt yourself. When I’m cycling (both unicycling and duocycling) I never worry about injury. I’m always limited by my fitness and energy levels.

Running is completely different. My cardio fitness is reasonably good from cycling and so I’ve yet to hit my fitness limit when running. Instead the limiting factor is injuring myself. It’s better now that I’ve found some shoes which work for me and learnt appropriate pacing, but it’s still really easy to push too hard and regret it for days or weeks.

It’s pretty fun though, especially trail running. I plan to keep it up and maybe even enter a race or two once the plague has passed.

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A while back I thought I’d try weight training in order to be more athletic for muni and trials. So I found a program and started lifting. I really enjoyed slowly leveling up my stats. I was going for a 1.5 x body weight squat. It became a second hobby. After a while I was lifting 4 times per week and riding maybe once. I got stronger, but my riding got worse because I wasn’t practicing enough.

I think there can be a lot of carry over from strength training and running if you do them as “off season” activities with a strict focus on improving your unicycling. For me, one ride a week (or less) was not enough to maintain skill. It’s pretty hard to figure out the best way to spend your limited time. It might be ok to try to get as fit as possible and maybe sacrifice some uni skill early in the cycle. But the closer Unicon gets, the more you should be riding in my opinion.

At a high level, athletic training has to be specific to the event you are training for. I think you should plan to taper your running down to almost none in the last month even if the riding is kind of boring.

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That’s something I notice as well, I really need to keep my stretching up after unicycling, especially if I go for a fast run, I notice that my range of motion gets restricted if I have been lazy about stretching. I think it’s something all cyclists (even the two wheeled ones) face, but the commonly short crank lengths on unicycles exaggerate the problem. Apparently it’s something about how when cycling your muscles only contract when shortening that makes you loose range of motion even quicker than with other exercise. (I’m not a sports scientist, so I don’t fully understand why that is)

Learning pacing is something that I found running to be extremely good at - because it punishes you very hard for getting it wrong. I (luckily) haven’t gotten injured from running so far, but I’ve had to quit long runs pretty away from home because I f***ed up my pacing and completely bonked. It might be that I rarely go out for 2-3 hours non stop unicycle rides, but I’ve never needed to be as in tune with my rate of perceived exertion on a unicycle (or a bike) as I need to be for running.

Absolutely agree, that was my plan for what to do before unicon this year (which obviously didn’t get to happen), and it will be the plan for 2022. But by then hopefully I can also go and visit some places with more exciting trails, and other riders too. My hometrails are great, but I find that I need a break from them to refresh occasionally.
It’s not that I want to take Unicon super serious (but I’d like to test out my potential a bit), but I think being fitter will also make events like Unicon more fun. I often tend to be very sore after a few days of intense riding, but also very motivated by having all the other riders around - I hope that’s something I can improve.

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You all sound so smart with running. Every time I go out running I think “if only I had my uni, because it is too slow” or maybe Im lazy, because with uni you can just sit. When I come to a point where I start running, I do it maybe 1-2 months and then get bored, but for endurance it is probably a good thing to do. When riding up hills, I can get quite winded and often have to take 5 mins to get my breath back before riding on.

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I went for a run yesterday! It was mainly to check the route for a planned uniride though. :slight_smile:

I encountered knee pain approx 3/4 of the way in, so then slowed to a walk for a bit.

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Nice! (Well not the knee pain, but that can happen and it’s smart to settle for a walk then). I’ve checked out areas for unicycling while running too, I hope you were more succesful than me though, because so far I haven’t found anything worth taking the uni to yet.

@Setonix I’m not sure if it helps you (because while I did start running regularily this year because I didn’t feel fit, I was a lot fitter than the general public), but it’s not that I love the feeling of running every second that I go for a run. I have “why did I decide that I want to run X-amount of kilometers today?” thoughts regularily, and sometimes I stare at my shoes for 10 minutes before putting them on and leaving the door.
But I always love the feeling afterwards, and most of the times where I didn’t feel motivated initially, I start to enjoy it 20 minutes in. I think this applies to most exercise, pushing through not always wanting to do it initially is part of it, winning that battle against the couch, and it takes a while to make it a routine. People that don’t do it often think everyone who does must be completely in love with the activity, or super disciplined - I wouldn’t agree on either: while you need some discipline, mostly it’s just knowing that you will feel a lot better afterwards.
I’m not saying that running is something everyone can learn to love, but I think “exercise” in general can be (or at least I hope so). And it would depend on your way of riding whether I would consider riding a unicycle “exercise” in that sense, it can be, but it also can be more similar to just going for a walk.

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