[Scott Johnston]

Alex;

You’re right that cycling doesn’t have the weight-bearing specificity of running. But it does allow you to accumulate much time more in the aerobic base training zone without the beating running imposes. It would be unwise, and Jesse certainly knows this well, to ramp up your running mileage very quickly after this layoff. So adding biking especially is a good way to add volume. My old Norwegian ski coach told us back in the day that a 1hour run= 3hours on the bike. That was depressing to hear but it correlates well with what the world’s best road runners and road cyclists do. 10 hours of running is a big week for a marathoner and 30 hours is a big week for a cyclist.

I coach a pro runner, Tom Evans and he often rides 3-6 hours/week on top of running. He loves riding and is good at it. So he gets some more aerobic base volume while letting his legs recover a bit between runs.

As for swimming: I recommend that for recovery sessions as it is just too far away from running specificity to carry over much training-wise. But, IMHO it is the BEAT recovery tool for really beat-up legs.

I hope this helps.
Scott