"The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through it." ~ Doug Bradbury
I haven't run since I played my last field hockey game in 1979. I never enjoyed it and gladly gave it up for the bike, raquetball and softball. Now in my old age I simply bike.
Marcie
I'm a one-act show, here.
Biking is it.
I'm very flat footed, and tend to run like a duck (even with the orthotics). I end up with shin-splints after about 20 yards. I wish I could run, but it's not worth the pain and suffering.
Walking/jogging on a treadmill when necessary.
2007 Seven ID8 - Bontrager InForm
2003 Klein Palomino - Terry Firefly (?)
2010 Seven Cafe Racer - Bontrager InForm
2008 Cervelo P2C - Adamo Prologue Saddle
I tried running in the past, but I find it really boring and unpleasant. I couldn't now even if I wanted to because of a nerve problem in one of my feet. Lucky, cycling doesn't trigger my foot pain, so that's gonna be my exercise for life!
I get chronic shin splints too, even with all the help I can get from orthotics, physical therapists, and sports trainers. I had a (then undiagnosed) stress fracture in high school from sprinting and hurdling. My attempts to do some short distance running for fitness through college and graduate school has earned me a nice osteochondritis dissecans lesion in my right ankle. It hasn't healed in years of no to lo-impact rest, but I don't want to get the surgery for it. I cycle because my doctor told me to get on indoor bikes while I was supposedly "healing." I don't want to be stuck in a gym forever, but running is still out for me.
Another non runner. I have tried to run in the past, and wish I could, but I just keep getting injured. My most successful attempt was in 2004. But, even with a lot of slow building up and walking, I keep getting groin pulls (a weak area for me) and knee issues. I lived in a flatter area in 2004, so that's maybe why it was easier on my body.
But, I am very slow (a ten or 9.5 minute mile) and really didn't see improvement. The reason I liked running was that you can go out any time and in 30 minutes feel like you've had a good work out. So now I walk at least once a week and in the fall and spring I do a lot of hiking on local trails. I also snow shoe and x country ski, do yoga. In the colder months I go to the gym, do spin, weights, etc. Really, though, cycling is my main activity.
I used to run--alot. Then I tore my ACL playing basketball 27 years ago and my joint is swiss cheese so I can only do non-impact stuff now. I still get the urge to head out the front door and just jog until I'm pooped. But now I've got a bike to do that.