How effective are these bike workouts for an 800m runner?

If your goal is to maintain running fitness during injury recovery, aqua jogging is your best friend and has been shown to preserve almost all pre-injury running fitness over a period of 6 weeks or so, and almost certainly even longer.

Nothing against cycling as a cyclist runner myself, but it will at best help maintain non-activity-specific aerobic fitness that tends to decay (or build for that matter) very slowly anyway.

I have been able to maintain my running fitness pretty well through a 3 months period. But that was my possibility of cross-training that period. I do not do 800, but longer, but I bounced back very quickly. I have just moved my running over to cycling, but cycling harder than threshold is much harder than running and more lactic (at least feals like it).

You are running much faster than me so your Watt at the bike is probably higher than me. Easy for me is 160-170W, so 180W for you is not hard. My threshold on the bike is 240-250W and my threshold running is around 4 min/k so I am like 25% slower than you looking at your PBs. Running translates well to cycling so you are probably a 300+W threshold on the bike. Then, you have fairly good feel for threshold in running so you can translate that feel OK to cycling (ref the 3x10 tempo or the 30s/15s)

The schedule is fine, but you might if motivated be able to go longer on the easy since it is low impact and get something extra aerobic training through the running break. Given your legs can handle it.

I did mostly elliptical threshold training for a good 5ish weeks and I pulled off a 1:56 800m with my PB being 1:53. I have similar surrounding PRs as you. The backside is your running specific aerobic shape is gonna drop pretty hard and you’ll feel it when you race 800m.

I'll increase my distances each week, but I don't want to jump into it too quickly. I'm also introducing aqua jogging in the following weeks when I get a pool to go to.

I definitely will build distance over time and I think it'll end up working pretty well but I really want to add aqua jogging.

Watts on a peloton is not real. Go by time and perceived effort and HR.

there is a lot of specificity to fitness, so just because you can run 1:54 or whatever good time does no mean you can cycle at x watts per kg. That’s ok though.

try to aqua run as much as possible, even one time per week is better than none.

you can cycle a lot longer than run, so try to get to longer durations.

keep working, it’s good for you mentally as well as physically

That's what I was thinking, I've been having a high RPE on my 15-20mile bike rides tbh. I know there is no strict translation between the two, but I'm trying to replicate the effort. I want my bike rides to feel the same aerobically as my runs and for my workouts to leave me just as dead! I'll try and get my rides to like 90 minutes.

You are not doing 20 mi at 20 mph easy, especially just starting out. Stationary bike mph are not accurate.

For easy you can go by HR instead. But HR for cycling is for me some 10 bpm lower than the same effort running. That is natural cause you employ less muscles when cycling compared to running. So I recommend to hit HR around 10 bpm lower (or for me some 8% lower than same intensity running). Then you can go by HR for easy and go by feel for the hard stuff

I don't really train by heart rate much but I'll look into it and try and figure out my zones!

Yeah it's def not an "easy" effort, more of just like the equivalent of my moderate runs. I'm not really worried about going too hard and getting injured bc it's biking, but I may be VERY dumb about that idk.

With stress fractures, it’s best to jog at the deep end of the pool until you are nearly pain-free, and then transition to jogging in the shallow area as the latter even if low-impact is impactful. Run any plan by your doc in any case.

There is no ability to directly correlate activity while cycling with training for the 800 even if you do workouts for track cycling (closest comparable). The best that you can do is to maintain your fitness. I’d rather see you do some weight training than cycling every day. I think that would serve you better. Can you lift some dumbbells?

Hey mate, that sucks and hope for a speedy recovery. I think your head is on the right track but think about supplementing aqua jogging and weight lifting to rebuild the engine strong from when you come back to race this season bc you still have time.

My senior year I got a stress fracture with similar times to you and with aqua jogging/biking + focusing areas of imbalances & weaknesses in my body for 6 weeks no running, I was able to break 51 I do recall. Just keep the intensity up.

I lift twice a week currently and I previously incorporated deadlifts and cleans, which improved my running a lot.

Since I can't do that, my trainer has me benching, doing single arm rows, and lots of single-legged deadlift work on my good leg. Should I increase to 3 days of lifting a week for now and add in some arm work at home?

Thank u for the encourangement! I plan on starting aqua jogging next week. I'm really hoping to have a good season, I'll have about 10 weeks to train before states after my injury.

Yeah aqua jogging is probably your best bet but the bike will help you maintain some fitness & get back to peak fitness a lot faster. Try to simulate the kinds of running workouts you would do on the bike. Play around with it because it's usually pretty hard to get your heart rate as high. Can, at the very least, keep a good amount of your aerobic base.

I am primarily a cyclist, former runner. Training plans are normally based on Functional Threshold Power (FTP). Your FTP can be easily tested and indicates how much power you can hold for a one hour 60 minute all out to exhaustion effort. You test it by doing a hard 20 minute effort and extrapolating. Workout plans then are based on a % of FTP and are individualized. Runners who are new to the sport typically have low FTPs because the don't yet have good muscular economy for cycling... much like fit cyclists running slow when they start running.
The easy days are fine @ 180 watts.
Your intervals look very low power and short on time. A 30 second interval is pretty short on the bike. Maybe change this to 4X60s sets at the same power? Hard to know how hard this is for you without your personal FTP.

For the 10 minute tempos, I think 300 watt averages would be reasonable for someone with your fitness, but not a ton of cycling training.

Good luck.

Most of what others are posting sounds good. A few comments: 1) I don't know if you've done water running in the past - it is *incredibly* boring, and you need to work hard to maintain the desired effort level (this is not just floating around in the pool!)- but, if you can do that, it is absolutely the best cross-training to maintain your running fitness. I found it *much* more difficult to get myself to water run the way it should be done than it is to run hard intervals on a track, for example. You've got to *really* work it- it takes a lot of mental fortitude! 2) Weight-lifting *could* be a very helpful supplement, but it depends on the individual - some have so much strength and muscle mass that gaining more is counter-productive, others find these gains lead to significant improvements - no way for those of us responding to know in your case but, if they do help you, your idea of going to 3 strength workouts per week is a good one. 3) As a general rule, runners do not have enough bike-specific fitness to get to the heart rates they would when running (real cyclists have the opposite situation and can get to higher HRs on the bike than running), so you're liable to be training at perhaps 10 beats lower for a while, when on the bike. No comments on your wattages - I would trust a real bike and smart trainer much more, but, if you only have a peloton, you'll have to make the best of it with that. 4) Studies a bunch of years ago showed *improvements* in running (though I think it was for 5k, not 800m) from a training program that involved hard standing intervals on the bike - but I don't know whether your stress fracture allows you to stand on the bike. 5) I would expect the hard intervals on the bike (even if sitting) to help some in preserving your running fitness. I'm less sure re:the hour-long rides (they will definitely help make you a better cyclist, but that's not your goal) - are you doing them to maintain lean body composition or for cardiovascular purposes? Wishing you good luck!

Different event (marathon) and different people lose running economy / running fitness differently; but I couldn't run for 3 weeks and trained substantially on a bike everyday. But even still; it took 6 weeks of running to feel back to where I was in terms of effort and heart rate rate for a given running pace.

I rode a road bike indoors on Zwift for 2 to 3 hours per day during the time off. Per week; this looked like this:
One 7x3 minute Vo2 interval day,
One 3x15 minutes threshold interval day
One 3 hour long ride in zone 3
The rest all easy zone 2 rides.