{"id":329303,"date":"2025-12-05T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T11:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/329303\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T11:29:10","slug":"it-will-be-a-part-of-my-plan-forever-how-cycling-100-miles-a-week-is-helping-this-olympic-runner-win-medals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/329303\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It will be a part of my plan forever’ \u2013 How cycling 100 miles a week is helping this Olympic runner win medals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Georgia Hunter Bell\u2019s Instagram username, @georgiabelltheduathlete<\/a>, has been causing confusion among her followers. \u201cI tried to change it the other day, actually,\u201d she says. But Instagram informed her that, as a verified Olympic athlete, she\u2019d need to contact the platform\u2019s big bosses. The \u201cduathlete\u201d hints at a life beyond her running \u2013 although many fans assume it refers to her dual discipline versatility on the running track \u2013 she is an Olympic bronze medallist in the 1,500m and a World Championships silver medallist in the 800m. \u201cThat\u2019s not quite what duathlete means, but I see where they\u2019re going with it,\u201d she concedes.<\/p>\n

A scroll through the tiles of her profile starts to tell a more intriguing story. Between the running shots and celebrations beneath vast stadium crowds come flashes of something else: bicycles. There\u2019s Hunter Bell on a Wattbike<\/a>, a Zwift<\/a> indoor trainer, and a deep blue Canyon<\/a> road bike, descending a mountain on clear-skied Mallorca. \u201cOnce you delve into people\u2019s stories, you usually find that they\u2019re quite multi-layered,\u201d the 32-year-old says.<\/p>\n

Hunter Bell\u2019s story came to me in a PR email, the sort I get 20 times a day and usually ignore. I\u2019d seen her race on television, but knew little about her, and assumed she spent most of her waking hours pounding roads and tracks in her running shoes. I was wrong. \u201cThough best known on the track,\u201d the PR email read, \u201cshe does 70% of her training on the bike.\u201d On the bike? But she\u2019s a world-class runner. I was mystified and somewhat skeptical. \u201cCould I meet her?\u201d I typed in reply. And so, two weeks after Hunter Bell won silver at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, I find myself sitting across from the Olympian and her black Americano in a cafe in Clapham, South London.<\/p>\n

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\"Georgia\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

I have two pressing questions: first, how can so much cycling make someone an elite-level runner? Second, can it work the other way round \u2013 can doing lots of running make you a better cyclist? The answers, it turns out, are not straightforward; Hunter Bell begins with a stirring comeback tale.<\/p>\n

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Born in Paris and brought up in London, she was a gifted young athlete and rose to become the UK\u2019s top-ranked junior 800m runner. She continued to excel in athletics while at university in Birmingham, and later earned a scholarship to train at the University of California, Berkeley. There, US coaches doubled her training volume to 60 miles a week \u2013 to disastrous effect. \u201cI was getting stress fractures from the impact of running,\u201d she says. \u201cFor long periods, I was hobbling around in a boot, on crutches.\u201d In 2017, after two years stateside, she turned her back on racing and found an office job in cybersecurity sales.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the cycling boom of the 2020 Covid lockdowns that her now husband George Hunter suggested she try a road bike<\/a>. \u201cOriginally it was a way to stay fit while also giving my body an impact break,\u201d she says, \u201cand then very quickly I got the appeal of cycling and was saying, \u2018Let\u2019s do 50k, 100k, 200k, let\u2019s cycle around Mallorca, Ibiza, let\u2019s do some of the climbs from the Tour de France<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ibiza, I realise, is a reference to the Duathlon World Championships in 2023, which was Hunter Bell\u2019s first serious race on the bike, and her first event in GB kit. She won in the 30-34 age group. \u201cI gained quite good fitness through all of that training, and ran a sub-16[-minute] 5k. That\u2019s when I got back in touch with my old running coach,\u201d she says. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.<\/p>\n

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Despite her comeback transpiring as a duathlete \u2013 hence her Instagram handle \u2013 Hunter Bell revived her running ambitions, made it onto GB\u2019s Paris Olympics<\/a> squad, and earned her place on the podium in the 1,500m, realising the dreams of her childhood. She left her office job after the Games, and is now a Nike-sponsored pro athlete. And what most interests me is that, through it all, cycling remained integral to her progress.<\/p>\n

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\"Lilian\n<\/p>\n

Hunter Bell (centre) won a silver medal in the 800m at the World Championships in September. <\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Returning to that 70% cycling claim, how much does Hunter Bell really ride her bike? \u201cBasically I do about 30-35 miles of running a week, and about 100 miles of cycling,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s more cycling in terms of mileage, but time-wise, it might be similar.\u201d As a rough calculation, that equates to about five to six hours of cycling and about four hours of running, so the PR\u2019s 70% figure isn\u2019t far off the mark \u2013 and it strikes me as an immense amount of cycling for a runner.<\/p>\n

Does it set her apart among her running rivals? \u201cIt\u2019s very uncommon,\u201d Hunter Bell says. \u201cMost of [my rivals] only go on the bike when they\u2019re injured, so cycling carries negative connotations.\u201d For her, it was the opposite: the bike spurred her back into competition. She is now five years injury-free \u2013 \u201ctouch wood,\u201d she smiles \u2013 for which she is thankful, in large part, to cycling.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not just about avoiding injuries, though. \u201cPeople are realising that you can actually get a lot of endurance base built on the bike, saving running input for the speedier stuff, where you\u2019ll do that flat-out sprinting on the track. That gives you a balance,\u201d Hunter Bell says, adding that she credits cycling \u2013 and especially Zwift \u2013 with helping to improve her finishing kick. \u201cI\u2019m picturing the names of the sessions now, like \u2018Grin and Bear It\u2019, \u2018Under Overs\u2019…,\u201d she says, wincing at the thought. \u201cI feel like I go to the same place [mentally] on the track, and you just keep pushing through.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to explore the science behind Hunter Bell\u2019s success, and whether cycling can form the basis of elite running achievements \u2013 and vice versa. My first call is to physiologist Professor Richard Davison, whom I ask what he makes of cycling training for runners. \u201cI think it makes a lot of sense,\u201d he says. For Davison, a central tenet is critical power<\/a>: the maximum power output an athlete can sustain without fatiguing rapidly. Go above this, and you begin to drain your \u2018tank\u2019 of energy, known as \u2018W Prime<\/a>\u2019 (or W\u2019) \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s a finite amount,\u201d stresses Davison. Provided you stay below your critical power, the levels in the energy tank are spared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see how, with the appropriate cycling intervals, you could make your critical power as high as possible,\u201d he says. \u201cA 1,500m runner will be trying to run most of the race not dipping into that W Prime too much, preserving it for the last 200m. You will have seen many runners get to the last 50m, or even the last 30m, and all of a sudden have nothing left. If you can operate in your race for long periods of time without having to dip into W Prime, then that gives you a weapon.\u201d I think back to watching Hunter Bell race, and notice it\u2019s often on the final stretch that she comes alive. Suddenly, all that low-impact, cycling interval training makes sense.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m more interested to know is this: can it work the other way? Can a cyclist get better at cycling through running? Davison immediately bursts my bubble, warning that, for a cyclist, too much running is likely to prove counter-productive. He speaks from personal experience. When he trained for the Highland Cross, a duathlon in the Scottish Highlands, he found that increasing his running volume was \u201churting\u201d his performance on the bike. \u201cIf you\u2019re running off the back of cycling, it\u2019ll develop your aerobic capacity, but it\u2019ll wreck your legs,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you want to compete at a good level cycling, running won\u2019t help. It damages the muscles too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running is a high-impact sport, generating forces that an uninitiated cyclist\u2019s legs simply can\u2019t handle. We need to start slowly: the gentler impact of jogging can be good for improving bone density, but beginners should be careful not to push it too hard too soon. \u201cYou really have to just tread on eggshells for quite some time,\u201d says Davison. \u201cAerobically you\u2019ve got the lungs, the heart and the muscles [to run], but the impact is liable to damage the muscles, the joints and the tendons.\u201d After a few weeks of gentle jogging, you should be able to cautiously turn up the speed. For most cyclists, a single weekly jog is enough to boost bone health and add variety without denting performance on the bike.<\/p>\n

British cyclist Max Stedman<\/a> discovered the cruel impact of running when he threw himself into it last year. Having spent 10 seasons riding for Continental teams, and breaking the British Everesting<\/a> record in 2020, he began his cycling retirement with a third place at his local Parkrun in Bristol, \u201cand then I was buckled,\u201d he says. \u201cMy calves were wrecked for about three months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stedman, now a coach at Belmont Performance, understands the pain came from a lack of conditioning of his muscles and tendons, which had gone impact-free for so many years. His cycling team bosses had never advised him to run, though he went for the odd jog, and recalls a 5k competition he had with team-mate Rory Townsend, who beat him by three seconds, posting a 18:08. \u201cI couldn\u2019t walk for about a week and a half,\u201d Stedman says of the aftermath.<\/p>\n

Despite his injuries, Stedman\u2019s running times are well above average \u2013 he completed his first half-marathon in 1hr 20min this year, and has set his sights on his mum\u2019s 2:36 marathon PB \u2013 but he hasn\u2019t seen any uptick in his cycling. Quite the opposite, actually: he feels he\u2019s lost his \u201cpunch\u201d on the bike since taking running more seriously. \u201cWith running, there\u2019s no need to accelerate that hard. I might need to \u2018up it\u2019 by five seconds a kilometre for a few kilometres, but that doesn\u2019t really require a hard change of acceleration, whereas cycling does,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Cyclists who run <\/p>\n

At the 2022 Tour de France, Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a> confirmed a rumour that he was setting out every morning to jog for 20-30 minutes. His then Jumbo-Visma team bosses explained he did it to \u201cwake the body up\u201d, but it was only ever at a slow rhythm. It\u2019s rare for cyclists to run competitively during their careers, for risk of injury, though some are daring enough; Adam Yates, for example, ran a sub-three-hour marathon<\/a> in Barcelona in late 2021, less than a month after finishing third at Il Lombardia. The most impressive running PB by an elite cyclist is held by gravel pro Freddy Ovett, son of Olympic 800m gold medallist Steve Ovett. Ovett Jnr blasted round the 2023 Valencia half-marathon in 1:09:43.<\/p>\n

Most pro cyclists who decide to take running seriously tend to do so only after retirement. 2017 Giro d\u2019Italia<\/a> winner Tom Dumoulin<\/a> ran October\u2019s Amsterdam marathon in 2:29:21, an exceptionally fast time that puts him in the top 1% of marathon finishers. Likewise, after Emma Pooley<\/a> announced her retirement from racing in 2014, the former time trial world champion went on to win four consecutive long distance duathlon world titles, each time running 40km. Demi Vollering<\/a>, the current number-one-ranked female cyclist, is also a keen runner, and holds a 5k PB of around 20 minutes, according to Strava<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back in Clapham, my coffee meeting with Hunter Bell is coming to an end. Her next stop is Battersea running track, for a session of gruelling all-out efforts she\u2019s been dreading all morning. It\u2019s the type of training, alongside her cycling, that\u2019s guiding her to medals and PBs in her 30s. I cut to the chase and ask how much of her success she puts down to the bike. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to know,\u201d she says, cautiously, \u201cbut I feel it will be a part of my plan forever. The number-one thing is that it has allowed me to be injury-free and stack year upon year [of training], that\u2019s what leads to Olympic and Worlds medals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cycling alone does not make someone an elite runner. From speaking to Hunter Bell and others, it\u2019s clear you need a base of conditioning, the type she built in her teenage days, and the lack of which likely led Mark Cavendish<\/a>, arguably the fastest cyclist of all time, to run a fairly average 1:57 half-marathon this spring, before abandoning his tilt at the Paris marathon. But if you can find the right blend for you, as Hunter Bell has, the performance gains can be medal-winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor as long as I\u2019m a professional track athlete, cycling is going to be 50%-plus of everything I do,\u201d she says. She may no longer be a duathlete, technically, but her training says otherwise.<\/p>\n

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 20th November 2025.\u00a0Subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and never miss an issue.<\/p>\n