Running can be a reasonably painful experience for some. They suffer from all sorts of blisters and chafing, muscle soreness and joint aches. These are minor issues that typically go away quite quickly.
Realistically, the main pain of running comes from injuries. These can range from the low intensity, short duration injuries like a pulled muscle to an extremely painful and long term injury like iliotibial band syndrome. Runners claim to be some of the most injured athletes for a mass participation sport. In any given year, way too many runners will spend time recovering in pain from muscle, ligament and bone injuries.
Cyclists, on the other hand, have a totally different set of pain to deal with. Most cyclists suffer from saddle soreness, neck and back stiffness and minor wrist problems from their long time on the road. These are unfortunate, but not serious, injuries. Other than these, the most common injuries happen as a result of contact with another solid object. These impacts happen relatively frequently in racing and training and range from mild gravel rash and bruises to life threatening internal injuries or spinal damage.
Today, while training in light rain one of my team mates had an unscheduled interaction with a steel pole. Travelling at about 30 km/hr, most of the impact was concentrated on one of his fingers which, when I last saw him, was either broken or dislocated judging by its weird angles. When he hit the ground, he suffered grazing on all corners and a particularly raw and swollen fore arm. Add to this a big dent to the top tube of his nearly new bike frame and tonight we can assume that he will be experiencing pain. He is a very brave man, and he won’t whinge or complain, but injuries like these make me feel a bit sick.
Which are worse, running injuries or cycling injuries? I can’t make up my mind. They are so different. The good news about cycling injuries is that you generally know what caused them. The good news about running injuries is that they hardly ever involve blood loss. Apart from these it is all bad news.
1 response so far ↓
1 Vern // Jul 21, 2007 at 9:17 am
Hmm, for me - all my biking injuries have been worse than my running injuries, but I was pushing very hard on the bike - 80+ miles in the hills of Pennsylvania at times.
I think the bike is worse for the speeds you’re moving at. I’ve cracked ribs at the sternum going over the handlebars. I’ve skidded across a road in Central Park in NYC after going over the handlebars at 32mph. I’ve done serious damage to my perinium and had some dysfunction with that - that has thankfully returned over time!
I’ve pushed myself harder and hurt much, much worse than I ever did after pushing myself running… One can push for 6 hours on the bike… running - the most I’ve ever run was about 2 hours, 2.5 maybe.
One has different speeds on the bike to push really hard when the urge hits. No comparison while running.
I don’t know, I think biking is much more dangerous but as far as pulling muscles - running is worse because so “jarring”… Biking provides an easy warm up with little chance to pull a muscle if done right.
Leave a Comment