I’m a much better cyclist than a runner. However I often thought that spending calories by running is much more efficient than cycling. Thus I did the math to check this.
A few days ago I did a screenshot of the Activity app on my iPhone.
My calorie count was 5319 kcals for this day, 2917 were based on activities. However I had to cycle 106 km for it in 3 hours 27 minutes to spend 951+1355 kcals for it at my usual 200 watts limit for the indoor ride and 250 watts limit for a not so flat outdoor ride. 2306 kcal. 21 kcal per km. 11 kcal per minute. The bicycle rides were measured with powermeters.
When I ran 12.6 km I spent 1,106 kcal in 1 hour 24 minutes. 87 kcal per km. 13 kcal per minute. This was my best 10 km time so from my perspective I was rather fast.
I thought there would be a much larger difference. Maybe related to the fact that I’m a rather slow runner. That said I’m staying with cycling, much better for my knees and I can’t run 3 hours so the total amount of spent kcals is still higher.
