Training surface

jimbo007

What's the best surface to train on for a marathon? I tend to try and do most of my runs on grass/dirt tracks, and run on road here and there because i think its easier on the legs... do you need to be running on road to build up endurance?

christeb

I think the general consensus on here will be try and run as much as possible on grass - you'll be healthier over the long term. That said, I'm sure races leading up to the marathon on the road, as well as some road training, won't go astray.
I've tried to stay on the soft stuff a lot more recently

hunnymonster

Studies of large groups of marathon runners do not show increased risk of injuries for people who run mainly on roads. For people already injured (or recently injured, <1 year) there does appear to be some effect and it is advised that they keep mileage below 32 km/week for this reason as there is a relationship between mileage and injury risk.

If the marathon you are going to run is on the road then a good proportion of your training should be on the road to prepare your body for this. To paraphrase the famous "the best way to run faster, is to run faster", the best way to run a road marathon is to train on the road.

Road (and worse cement on pavements) is a lot harder than trail, grass or sand so the forces will be greater. Take from that what you will.

Mind you, you can prove almost anything using studies of people when you are relying on them to fill out surveys and answer questionaires. One group found a large positive correlation between injury rates in marathoners and educational level (sorry MarieC, roadrunner and other smarty pants)

cfitz

I look forward to hearing the replies you get to this. If wear and tear on your body was no issue, then I'd say training on the road is probably the best preparation for any type of road race. However, it would seem that even for very efficient athletes, training on the road can present injury risks. As someone who doesn't run many road races and hasn't done any marathons (so not really fit to advise!), I would imagine that doing most of your training that's faster than predicted marathon pace on the road and doing the rest on grass might be a good approach. I do as much training as possible on grass, but my preferred race type is cross-country (perhaps that is partly due to all my off-road training). For the track season I am considering doing my fast sessions on tartan.

Krusty_Clown

Not really injury/physiology relate, but I tend to do my shorter runs and recovery runs on grass, and longer runs on the road. My reason for this is running 16+ miles around a pitch/field would be (for me) mind numbingly boring (unless you have the luxury of living beside Phoenix Park). Speed sessions are done in the park on good tarmac, so I don't have to worry about crossing roads, dodgy pavements, traffic, school-kids etc.

In the past I've done long runs by running from park to park, with occasional laps on the grass, but these days I'm favouring hills, nice views and road surfaces very similar to those that I'll face on Sunday week in Connemara.

buck65

Absolutely do as much as possible on trails or grass, the less impact on the joints the better. I damaged my foot on the road about 6 weeks ago and although I am back training 3 weeks if I didn't have a nearby trail I couldn't have resumed til now.
I ran 3 times on the trail in the first week with no ill effect and a short speed session on the road the following week and it was only after that road run did the swelling begin again.
Once I returned to the trails and grass the pain stopped.
Every book and pro runner that I am aware of seems to be of the same view.

RoyMcC

Personally speaking I do nearly 100% of my running (plodding) on roads and - lucky or not, I've yet to pick up any injuries over the course of six years.

In fact the only dodgy moments I've had have been with turned ankles when going off-road, fortunately with no lasting damage.

I'm also starting on my second 1000 miles with the same shoes to test out the received wisdom that they should be binned every few hundred miles

So I'd say that there is no definitive answer to the OP's question.

shels4ever

hunnymonster wrote: »

If the marathon you are going to run is on the road then a good proportion of your training should be on the road to prepare your body for this. To paraphrase the famous "the best way to run faster, is to run faster", the best way to run a road marathon is to train on the road.

+1
Sounds about right to me, I was reading up and asking people about this a few weeks ago. At that point 100% of my training was on grass . There are are few things that I've noticed

1. Long runs on grass will be slower, will be hard to gague your planned marathon pace . I guess i'm seeing 15 seconds per mile on grass compared to road. Because of this i've moved my long runs to road or at least the second half of the long run and it makes it easier to judge pace and planned marathon times.

2. I've been told that you run the risk of cramping if you havent done much road running, not sure of the reason for this but I guess its a shock to the body come marathon day if you havent done much road running.

Best of luck with the Marathon.

buck65

I would agree with the slower pace on grass bit. My times would be 20 seconds aprox slower on trails/grass this might also be due to the frequent little hills and dips on the course.
I certainly would recommend mixing the two with some speed work on a track just to give a little bounce!!

Cole

Any opinions on synthetic tracks? I use an athletics track from time to time.
Can be a bit boring doing the laps but I assume it's significantly easier on my body.

ss43

hunnymonster wrote: »

Studies of large groups of marathon runners do not show increased risk of injuries for people who run mainly on roads. For people already injured (or recently injured, <1 year) there does appear to be some effect and it is advised that they keep mileage below 32 km/week for this reason as there is a relationship between mileage and injury risk.

If the marathon you are going to run is on the road then a good proportion of your training should be on the road to prepare your body for this. To paraphrase the famous "the best way to run faster, is to run faster", the best way to run a road marathon is to train on the road.

Road (and worse cement on pavements) is a lot harder than trail, grass or sand so the forces will be greater. Take from that what you will.

Mind you, you can prove almost anything using studies of people when you are relying on them to fill out surveys and answer questionaires. One group found a large positive correlation between injury rates in marathoners and educational level (sorry MarieC, roadrunner and other smarty pants)

From my experience top marathoners do most of their training off road but some of the more important sessions where running at specific paces is important would be done on tarmac.

Out of curiosity, do these people who advise doing less than 32k/week suggest how else you would train for a marathon? You couldn't train for 1500 off that.

hunnymonster

The < 32 was for recovering from lower limb injuries, I assume the sensible advice is to recover from the injury before considering a marathon. Been a while since I read the study in question.

plodder

I'm a heavy runner, and this has always concerned me. For my first couple of marathons I trained on grass during the week, and then did my long weekend runs on the road. That seemed to work quite well.

Now, I'm running mostly on the road, though not out of choice. I'd prefer to be running more on grass.

Running Bing

I trained for my first marathon last year and did all my running on road. In the last couple of months I have switched to doing most of my running on grass.


I have noticed that although I am doing more running than ever I no longer have any niggles now which were almost constant when I was running on the road. Maybe there are other factors involved but I definitely think it makes a difference.


I have seen it explained in an article that invited the reader to take a golf ball and bounce it on tarmac...then do the same on grass. The difference is obvious and it simply must have some effect on running imo!


Having said that your going to be running the race on the road so you have to prepare for that. Im far from an expert but based on my experience if I was training for a marathon again I would do all my short easy runs on grass but do my long runs on road. I would also do any speedwork or tempo runs on road/track because 1) for tempo runs you have to keep a nice even pace which is more difficult on grass and 2) when running faster its easier to turnover on your ankle on an uneven grass surface.

donothoponpop

hunnymonster wrote: »

If the marathon you are going to run is on the road then a good proportion of your training should be on the road to prepare your body for this. To paraphrase the famous "the best way to run faster, is to run faster", the best way to run a road marathon is to train on the road.

Don't agree with this at all HM, training on softer surfaces is what all the best Kenyans do. Most of the training logs I've read from top marathoners show they do most of their milage on trails, certainly when its an option. Less impact stress on the joints, and an added benefit of strengthening ankles from the uneven ground.

I'd agree that some runs should be on the road, preferably all of the longer PMP runs, in order to aclimatise to race conditions.

hunnymonster

donothoponpop wrote: »

Don't agree with this at all HM, training on softer surfaces is what all the best Kenyans do. Most of the training logs I've read from top marathoners show they do most of their milage on trails, certainly when its an option. Less impact stress on the joints, and an added benefit of strengthening ankles from the uneven ground.

I'd agree that some runs should be on the road, preferably all of the longer PMP runs, in order to aclimatise to race conditions.

the professionals have the advantages that mostly they have been running for years and years so are well used to all surfaces (less need to adapt to road conditions) and the disadvantages that they are usually running at least 100 miles a week so there is a strong case for them using a greater variety of surfaces. They are also usually significantly underweight with the associated bone problems (most noticeable in women but starting to get reported for men). For your average runner, I would spend more time on the road than off it so long as long as there are no other issues. It's a case by case approach though, I don't pretend one size fits all.

Before this year, I did pretty much all my running on roads. This year, I've mixed it up a lot more. One thing that has really struck me is that when running with a backpack, I really notice the impact of the road, whereas, once I had gotten used to the wibblyness of sand and mud, It is much easier (though slower) on the soft surfaces.

Funkyzeit

hunnymonster wrote: »

Studies of large groups of marathon runners do not show increased risk of injuries for people who run mainly on roads.

I heard a doctor from the US on The Last Word (I think it was) talking about that alright - it was a huge commissioned study - very large numbers involved - was fascinating to hear as I (like many others) had always thought road running was indeed worse on the joints...

RoyMcC

The best way to protect your joints is - not to avoid hard surfaces but to cushion the impact by running correctly and softly. Though I don't want to take this thread down that particular road, err I mean trail...

ss43

hunnymonster wrote: »

the professionals have the advantages that mostly they have been running for years and years so are well used to all surfaces (less need to adapt to road conditions) and the disadvantages that they are usually running at least 100 miles a week so there is a strong case for them using a greater variety of surfaces. They are also usually significantly underweight with the associated bone problems (most noticeable in women but starting to get reported for men).

Could you elaborate on that significantly underweight point? Do you mean most elite marathoners are unhealthily light?

Stupid_Private

Babybing wrote: »

I trained for my first marathon last year and did all my running on road.

...

I have noticed that although I am doing more running than ever I no longer have any niggles now which were almost constant when I was running on the road.

As you said it was your first marathon, the new training load alone could have caused a lot of the niggles regardless of where you trained. Now your body should be able to deal with the stresses better than they were before your first marathon.

I mix between both but would probably cover most of my training on the road - no reason other than I couldn't be arsed destroying pairs of runners in the mud.

hunnymonster

ss43 wrote: »

Could you elaborate on that significantly underweight point? Do you mean most elite marathoners are unhealthily light?

yes if they were normal people, the jury is still out on whether their better care of their bodies, better cardiovascular fitness etc balances out the underweightness. Go read about it in the sports physiology journals if you're interested. A lay-man's starting point might be
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/body-fat-and-running-performance
or
http://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_frank02.html

to look at the numbers in the Horwell article, I'm 1.63m tall and female so the weight he suggests I should be to optimise my performance is 46 kgs. When I ill the minimum (not preferred, just minimum) weight the doctors considered safe for me to leave hospital at was 48kgs.The problems are particularly significant for women because decreased body fat means decreased oestrogen means all sorts of problems.


All that said, when you look at some of the elite runners (Paula and Sonia), they don't appear to have had any problems concieving which is usually one of the signs that all is not right with a womans body.

I guess it's like anything else, try and learn as much as you can and make informed decisions. If you want to perform to your best, you're going to have to lose weight. If you are worried about joint problems you might have, consider running on a range of surfaces.....


One of the things about road running that hasn't specifically been mentioned so far is that a road is a very flat surface, you're going to hit the ground the same way each stride. On uneven surfaces you have a greater range of ways to land with each footstrike

dna_leri

hunnymonster wrote: »

One of the things about road running that hasn't specifically been mentioned so far is that a road is a very flat surface, you're going to hit the ground the same way each stride. On uneven surfaces you have a greater range of ways to land with each footstrike

Is the flat surface better in that you get a more economical stride or is the greater range of ways to land better in that it works other parts of the foot & leg ?

Personally I think the latter, which is one of the reasons why I now run as much as possible on trails.

Trails also eliminate the risk of vehicle v's runner collision.

--amadeus--

I did almost all of my initial marathons off road training and now do virtually all of it on gravel paths and haven't noticed any significant difference, although the difference between the paths and tarmac would be pretty small.

IMHO this is one of those "whatever you're having yourself" points. Trail and grass advocates will point out the greater cushioning of grass and also the greater lower limb strength that you build by running on an uneven surface (MBT shoes without the price tag ), not to mention the safety of running without traffic risks. Road runners point out the importance of conditioning your body - and in particular your joints - for 26.2 miles on tarmac and concrete. Specificity of training means you should mimic your race conditions as closely as possible (ie road run) and teh greater ability to judge race pace on smooth surfaces. The answer is to mix it up and find teh blend that works for you - long runs on road, short sessions on track and recovery on grass or trails would be ideal if you had easy access to all 3.

[edit] On teh 30k per week question - you can (and many people do) complete a marathon on an average volume of 30k-ish and 3 runs per week. I probably wasn't much above that for my 1st one but you will struggle for stamina and won't set any speed records.

TFBubendorfer

hunnymonster wrote: »

All that said, when you look at some of the elite runners (Paula and Sonia), they don't appear to have had any problems conceiving which is usually one of the signs that all is not right with a woman's body.

On the other hand, Paula's autobiography openly states that she does not get her period when she is in full training mode. I guess she had to wait until post race season in order to conceive her baby.

As for most elite marathon runners being underweight, just have a look at them. Most of them are whippet thin.

Stark

I find off-road to be much more forgiving than on-road and injuries seem to be a thing of the past since I mostly gave up the road running. That said, I wouldn't attempt 26 miles on road unless I had given my joints a chance to adapt to the impact forces in training.

Seres

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

On the other hand, Paula's autobiography openly states that she does not get her period when she is in full training mode. I guess she had to wait until post race season in order to conceive her baby.

As for most elite marathon runners being underweight, just have a look at them. Most of them are whippet thin.

maybe it depends on your natural build , maybe the greater your deviation from your natural weight the more likely your body will stop functioning as it should.