Three reasons why run commuting is better than bicycle commuting

00:00 Daren DLake: What if I told you that your commute, yeah, that same old route you take every day, could be your new secret weapon in your running arsenal. It’s time to change up your mentality on what you think you know about getting from point A to point B. Welcome to the dope world of run commuting, where every step isn’t just a path to going somewhere else, But a leap towards a healthier, more badass version of yourself. I promise these are not BS words. By the end of this whole thing, you’re not just going to see your run commuting as a new alternate option. You’ll view it as an indispensable part of your whole day in a very, very holistic way. I’ll deep dive into the hows and whys, cutting through the excuses and misconceptions with a mix of hard truths and unexpected insights. say peace out to the, but I can’t because mindset. We’re going to tackle every barrier, real or imagined. And I’ll show you how integrating this simple yet powerful habit can transform not just your fitness, but your entire perspective on daily life. promise. Lots of big promises. They’re legit. And as a bonus, because I love you, I’ll do all of this with my great friend and guest co-host, Remy BeReal of this, This or That series. Stick around for how he’ll try to change my mind by arguing the side of bike commuting and why he thinks it’s way better. Maybe you might think it’s way better too. Let’s go.

01:21 Stacey: I just go in, I get started and I save my running for at home when I can come home and use my own damn shower.

01:31 Remy B Reel: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome back for season two of This or That, the show where we cover polarizing topics in enduring sports, seeing which side of the argument you land on, because you can get with this or you can get with that with my man D-Lake. How are you feeling?

01:50 Daren DLake: I am great and I’m just looking forward to this next season. Last season was dope. We brought in a bunch of our friends to talk about these really weird polarizing topics that I’m sure you thought about, but it can help you think of things holistically and know that it’s not just black and white and that you can actually have a gray area and you should. You should always think about the other side. So this episode is would you rather run commute or bike commute?

02:12 Remy B Reel: Now, these are topics near and dear to the both of us as we both do a fair amount of commuting and have a slightly different take on it. So, Darren, why don’t you tell us what you prefer?

02:24 Daren DLake: All right. You know what I’m going to say. Running’s better. And here’s why. I mean, flat out, it’s just easier. Like, think about it. You literally have two feet. If you have any form of decent shoes on, you can just start running. So you can literally run commute anywhere. But I know there’s a lot of objections. I know that there’s a lot of variables and, you know, everyone can’t do it. And I’m addressed them in a second. So before I keep going on to the how you do it, because I’m sure you’re like, how do you do it? How do you do it? Which I’m just going to touch on really, really light touching. I actually want to talk about why it’s so important. You get really easy kilometers in or miles if you’re in the Imperial American system. And that actually helps with fitness. And while you might not think 15, 20 minutes easy is valuable, you compound that twice a week. four times a month or so that’s eight times a month, eight times 12, you get it. So you’re at almost a hundred extra 20 minute runs. And that really builds up your aerobic system, which is base, which helps you run farther and faster. It builds up so many different systems that you need and you slow down because you might, you might have a backpack on, um, you’re stopping at lights. So, you know, I push my son on the, uh, the pram with our stroller running stroller. So I have to run slow up hills and stuff. And it forces me to slow down, which I think is a really, really good thing. And it’s just nice to be out and not stuck in a car. So when we talk about run commuting, let’s just talk about commuting to work or school or something, somewhere where there’s a stable place that you go to many times. I also commute to the grocery store. I commute to other different places like the beach and all this stuff, but we’ll just keep it simple. And yes, there are logistics involved with run commuting somewhere. But if it is a stable place that you go to a few times a week, many times per month, then you can make it work. Oh, you’re going to come into a place, you’re going to be sweaty, you’re going to stink. Here’s how you do it. This is real quick. There’s a lot more to this. Make sure you take a shower right before you leave to your, uh, your destination. Um, wear clean clothes when you go out. Definitely have clean clothes and a towel when you get to the place. Sometimes I can’t take a shower, but if I am already Clean before I get there. I bring some deodorant if you’re into deodorant is all different types I’d say please wear deodorant and you have a towel and wet wipes Those are your friends go into any bathroom or even just a water fountain I found, yes, I know, this is getting a bit, yeah. But you know what, I don’t mind doing that type of stuff because that’s just the type of person I am. I try to be minimal, I try to be simple. And that allows me to just wipe down, done. A rebuttal that a lot of people say is, you know, oh, I’m a man or woman, I’m into hair and makeup, et cetera. You know, clothing, nice clothing. So I wear this type of stuff as much as I can. Fortunately, again, I designed my life to be around this. But if you have to wear a suit or something, have it at the destination. You can also pack suits. I’ve seen people running with, run commuting with a suit. Hanger the suit on the back of their backpack If there’s a will there’s a way if you really want to do it But have your stuff there you can use dry cleaners if you’re in the city or suburbs or whatever if your office is there or your your your place your destination place Look, you got to be minimal with the hair makeup. Look at that. I’ve got a Short hair, sometimes I’m bald, and I do that on purpose to be minimal. I know most women and men can’t just shave their heads, but just think about it. Maybe it’s a day when you can wear less clothing, or maybe it’s a day where you can just dress down a bit. That might be the day where you run commute. Or again, you can run commute home. That could be something that you do. So home is easier, because then you can just go straight in the shower and it’s the end of the day. So there’s a lot of variations, a lot of different ways you can do this. I’m just touching the tip of the iceberg.

05:55 Remy B Reel: I’ll take this over to… Whoa, I’m sorry. You want to do what? Nah. So what are we, prehistoric man out here? What do you want me to grab a spear and stalk an antelope behind the bushes on my way to work too? Nah, B. Man created the wheel, so we’re going to use that tool and use the bike to commute. So many reasons why, we’ll just list a few. Number one, the efforts can be as intense or as relaxed as you want it to be. You’ve got gears, you can optimize your route. You know, you don’t have to go the same way that a car or a bus would go. You can really take a nice scenic route. The long way, if you want to get a workout, find the shortest way possible. There are bike paths. You can even ride an e-bike and make it real chill. You don’t even have to change the way you dress, being number two, right? Like, you can dress in cycling gear if you’ve got a place to change, or you can just keep it cash, slacks and a shirt, a polo and some khakis, t-shirts and jeans, shorts, and just ride as you would and arrive without having to change if you don’t have a place to change. And three, probably the most important, you can get so much further on a bike than you can Running. Depending on who you are, you don’t have to worry about that. Endurance and fitness and fatigue. A bike lets you cover so much more ground while also having storage options, whether that’s frame bags, saddle bags, a backpack that you can use to lug your stuff around. So whether you’re commuting to work, the post office to run some errands, or out to the grocery store, using the bike just makes a lot more sense. But that’s me.

07:49 Daren DLake: Ad break. If you’re like me and you don’t process coffee or high caffeine well, but have read about all the scientific benefits of caffeine early in your workday, I think Magic Mind, who is the sponsor of this podcast, might be the solution. This small supplemental drink doesn’t crash me after taking it, which I can’t say for most coffees and highly caffeinated teas. They do things to me that I’m like, no. Not a fan, but I love the taste of them. I totally love the taste of them. I took this stuff and no lie, I promise I wouldn’t lie to you as trust is all we have being humans, but I got this urge to write out of the blue after taking it. No BS. Like I was like, wait, I want to start writing right now. I then took it the next day and boom, another urge to write and my focus was on point. I even took this midway during a long run to test its effects and I am definitely happy to report that my stomach was good, didn’t get any weird energy drops, and felt even sharper towards the end of the run than I normally do. There’s some legit science in here that I’ll go over. So if you also want your nootropics, which is what the Magic Mind supplement is, without sweeteners, Magic Mind is packed with natural ingredients like matcha, organic lion’s mane mushrooms, cordyceps mushrooms. Yes, it’s the stuff that’s in my war juice concoction. Choline, scientifically proven. Redolia, Rosea, vitamins, B12, C and D3, turmeric, and a bunch more. Only in this month of February, they will help you gear up to crush those 2024 New Year’s resolutions. You should be doing your 1% every day, fully focused. You get one month for free when you subscribe for three months, which is up to 56% off. at magicmind.com forward slash d l a k e that’s magicmind.com spell the normal way use code d l a k e 2 0 at checkout this is only for the next 10 days after you sign up that you can get this discount and guess what as a crazy even more bonus to anyone that doesn’t like it after you try it and buy it if you don’t like it just email them and they will literally no questions asked refund you 100% which i think is really dope so go out there and get it and let’s get back into the episode All right, so let’s just go straight to the polls because I polled the Instagram community and I wanted to see what people thought. This is the beauty of this whole thing is that we wanted to really crowdsource a lot of this information and data and see what people thought because you’ll get really interesting ideas from people. that you may have not thought of. And their whys are really, really important. And we’ll get to actually some community whys in a second. But, I’m gonna go to my screen over here. The poll, would you rather bike commute 61% and running 39%? That’s interesting. It actually makes sense. I think it’s interesting because running is so high. Like, if you look around, Ain’t nobody run commuting around here. I look around, New York City, ain’t nobody run. You might be walking. I think I saw one Rollerblade commuter in all of New York City where it’s the best place to damn Rollerblade because it’s just pancake flat and the roads are huge. But run commuting is really weird. It’s just ride your bike, walk. run commute. So only runners would really run commute. Only hardcore runners run commute. Casual people can ride their bikes. Like, you know, you don’t, it’s not, it’s not just people like right up ready to do toilet tour to France that ride their bike. You know, everyone’s riding their bike, but run commuting is a weird one. Here’s some responses. So quicker from Reese rise, Bob, uh, quicker, get less sweaty and can commute from a longer distance. So they’re probably obviously saying bike. Bike is less sweaty afterwards and less exhausted. Anonymous, because bikes are dope. Oh, that’s you. Scared of cycling on the road and prefer running. Okay, that’s for running, Amy T. Triathlon. And the reason why I’m reading this out, I know all you people are watching on YouTube, is because this is also a podcast. We believe, or I believe in holistic learning experiences. So this will be available obviously as a video if you’re watching. It’s gonna be a podcast audio if you wanna do it on the go or whatever. And or it’ll be written. So there’s a lot of ways where you can consume this. I like doing this stuff, it’s fun. And I wanna make sure that you absorb it all in as many ways as possible. All right, so we heard from the polls, from Instagram. Let’s actually get some real world reactions from the community.

12:24 Stacey: Bike commuting or run commuting? Me, I’m a bike commuter. Why? I can pop on my normal clothes, I can put my lunch in my bag, I got my laptop on my back, I even have a little basket, and I can just leisurely bike in, show up to work, and I’m ready to go. Run commuting, I show up, sweaty as all get out, and then shower, I gotta do my hair, gotta bring my hair product, gotta bring my deodorant, gotta bring my shampoo, gotta bring a change of clothes, and then, like, what time am I really saving? I come out for a meeting, my hair’s all wet, and people are like, what did you just do, right? a complete mess, okay? And then you’re running, like what? You’re running with your lunch, you’re running with your laptop. It is just, it’s a whole lot of action. People who I know who do run commuting, maybe they don’t take as much time with their hair as me. Maybe they have like simpler clothes. Maybe they have like a whole cupboard at work where they keep all their fancy stuff and it doesn’t take them all that much time. Whatever, it’s not me. I do my bike. I just go in, I get started and I save my running for at home when I can come home and use my own damn shower.

13:38 Mike Trees: Actually, I pick cycling. I can fit all my things on the bike and it will interfere with my actual training less. If I’m running and I have to put a rucksack on, it’s interfering with my natural form and I don’t feel that I can run naturally carrying things when I’m running. So if I could run and actually go from my door to where I’m planning to be and then have all the clothes and everything set up there, run commuting is good. But I just hate the fact that I have to carry things in a rucksack and can’t run naturally as I like to run. So that’s why I’d pick cycling over running.

14:14 Remy B Reel: So we heard from the community and I gotta tell you, they made some pretty compelling arguments that’s making me rethink my stance. What about you, D?

14:21 Daren DLake: Look, a lot of people said some really factual things. Like, I honestly, I go between bike commuting and run commuting, and if it’s hot and I got to ride far, I got to go far, then the bike wins all day long. If I don’t want to run, I’m recovering. I don’t want to put all those miles on my legs. I don’t want to be sweaty, too sweaty. I don’t have a shower where I’m going. And, um, that’s pretty much it. Like it’s, it’s, it’s a combination of both is, you know, I’m always, I’m always both. Like I’m, I’m rarely ever polarized and hard left, right. But, uh, I would definitely say the bike wins if you’re just not a fast runner also, like let’s say you’re extremely slow runner and running does just doesn’t make sense to do three, four miles, then obviously the bike would win. So there is a time and place for the bike.

15:10 Remy B Reel: Yeah, I hear that. And, you know, biggest thing is the more options that we have for commuting, the better off we’re all going to be. Right. So it doesn’t have to exclusively be bike commuting because there’s also maintaining that bike. And you can get that flat tire or it can just be raining or snowing or depending on where you go and there just isn’t the infrastructure for it. There’s nowhere to lock your bike up. And, you know, all these challenges that happen. So running. can make an awful lot of sense where if you do have the time, you can leave a little earlier and running doesn’t have to be your 5k pace. You can take a gentle jog. You know, you can get off the bus and it’s like, go those last two, three miles by foot. It does have a good appeal where there isn’t a whole lot of extra gear you need to get. You don’t have to take special care of your run shoes or anything like that. You can just pick up and go do it. So try it. Any parting words on that? Any final thoughts on that, Darren?

16:15 Daren DLake: Always got a lot of thoughts. We could have this go for another 20 minutes. This is like a really big thing that that holds near and dear to my heart. I’m big on sustainability. I mean, most people are. Most people care about the world and having a better future for ourselves and the youngins, the kids out there. So I think this is one part of the piece of a bigger puzzle. of a circular economy, and if we’re sharing things more and living in cities and living closer to cities, then you, if you have that opportunity to live close to a city or a town or whatever, then you should then take that opportunity to make sure that your, not jamming up the roads because, uh, it’s a bad experience for you. Obviously people on buses, you’re making it worse for them because you’re driving your car by yourself where there’s four people there. Um, so this is more zooming out and why you should run and or bike commute. And again, this is a conversation for another day. I could go a rance, but just, you know, if you’re going to pick one, that’s great. Don’t, don’t not do either one because, Oh, I’m going to get like, just, just try it. There’s, there’s so many ways of doing it. Um, what are you gonna say? You’re, you’re, you’re chomping at the bit.

17:24 Remy B Reel: Yeah, figure this out. You’re not stuck in traffic. You are the traffic. So if you’re just not in the car, it’s going to be better for everyone else. The more people who have the cars are a tool that the more people who have them, the less useful they are. So the less cars that are on the road at any given time, the better it is for everyone. Full stop.

17:49 Daren DLake: Those are great words. Those are absolute great words, especially in the city, because the grid and the traffic, if you’re out in the country, out in the farmlands, yes, by all means, drive your car, because that’s the only logical way you can get around. I’m going to end it there.

18:06 Remy B Reel: Till next time, y’all. It’s been real.18:11 Daren DLake: You’ve made it to the end. Thank you so much for listening to all this stuff on how we try to make running and training and life and all that stuff work, because time is a resource that no one can make more of. Not yet, at least. So we appreciate you taking the time out of your day to listen, watch and generally consume all this stuff. Accessibility is pretty cool nowadays, so we have a transcript for all the episodes. Make sure you go to the show notes section of this episode on whatever podcast player you’re listening to, or you can go to the description of the YouTube video, or just go to podcast.delaycreates.com to find the episode and the transcript. All of this was produced in Sydney, Australia, so I acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, who are the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. A lot of people ask how they can support us, and I think the easiest way is to just share this out to people you know that would like this. So whether it’s a podcast link from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever you’re listening to, or watching on YouTube, send them a link, just flick it to them, email it, text it, you know, Instagram, whatever. Send them a link of this episode, or my newsletter, or whatever you can, the YouTube link, whatever you can. The second easiest way is to rate, like, or subscribe to this podcast and or video on YouTube, or even subscribe to my newsletter. If you have any feedback, feel free to hit me up. Talk at 1betterrun.com/. That’s T-A-L-K at 1betterrun.com/. Spelled the normal way, train smart, race, and live easy. Peace.