Marathon training on grass

clareabu

Hi,

I am training for a Marathon in April. To date I have completed all my runs on grass. I plan to do all my remaining runs on grass.

Is this ok? I am concerned that my legs will take a serious hammering when it comes to the marathon on the road. Anybody have experience of training on grass only? How did your legs feels during/after the marathon?

dev123

clareabu wrote: »

Hi,

I am training for a Marathon in April. To date I have completed all my runs on grass. I plan to do all my remaining runs on grass.

Is this ok? I am concerned that my legs will take a serious hammering when it comes to the marathon on the road. Anybody have experience of training on grass only? How did your legs feels during/after the marathon?

I try and do some of my training on grass or trail to give the legs a bit of a break but I would do all my LSRs on the surface that my planned marathon is on. While running on grass will save your legs during training I think you should definitely try and fit in some miles on the surface you are going to be running the marathon on (tarmac, concrete, traill etc.). Training is based on specificity and it is my understanding that this would apply to the surface that you run on as well.

TFBubendorfer

clareabu wrote: »

Hi,

I am training for a Marathon in April. To date I have completed all my runs on grass. I plan to do all my remaining runs on grass.

Is this ok? I am concerned that my legs will take a serious hammering when it comes to the marathon on the road. Anybody have experience of training on grass only? How did your legs feels during/after the marathon?

No, it's not ok to do ALL your training on grass. You need to prepare your legs for the pounding they get on the road, and the only way to so is to run a certain percentage on the road.

Micilin Muc

I have never run exclusively on grass, so I can't give you first-hand advice.

This article from Pete Pfitzinger is quite interesting. He seems to be well-respected. Essentially he says you should do at least 30 miles of your weekly mileage on roads for the last 10 weeks before the marathon.

shels4ever

I would have done 100% of my running on grass, but for Marathons it would be ideal if you can mix up some of your runs on Road , maybe introduce this in your mid week medium long run over time.
If your doing PMP session try this or road, I've heard stories of some people getting bad cramps in later stages of marathon and put it down to doing all running of grass and not been able to handle the stress of the road.
Best prep for any race is to have simulated race day condition to some degree in training.

clareabu

Thanks everybody. I have a 5 mile, 10 mile and 13.1 mile at faster than race pace planned over the coming weeks. I will plan on running these on a road surface.

webmaster7

I am not much into marathon. As far as my knowledge while switching to road its better to prepare yourself for that through regular running on road. Make sure you have the right running gear

rom

clareabu wrote: »

Thanks everybody. I have a 5 mile, 10 mile and 13.1 mile at faster than race pace planned over the coming weeks. I will plan on running these on a road surface.

When you start running on the road, run on the road if you can and its safe to do so. The footpath is not the same. If you hit a hammer off the road and then off the footpath there is a little give on the road. There is none on the footpath.

robinph

If you are running along the edge of the road a lot though you will find the camber to be a major issue unless you change sides often. There will be a slight camber on the footpaths as well but nowhere near as bad, the rise and fall due to driveways would be more noticeable. During the marathon do not hug the same curb for the full distance either, even if there is a blue line painted there. You are better off running along the centre line where it is flat where possible and then take the short route round corners.

Whatever you do though, if the marathon is on road you need to get off the grass and used to harder surfaces now.

altercor

Take it from me: I did a full 18 weeks of a P&D program 55-70 miles on grass last year for an October Marathon. I felt great hitting the numbers per week and even my pace was good enought for a sub 3 marathon. The week before the race I did a ten miler on the road at a decent pace and felt my achilles twinge. I got 12 miles in to the marathon that i had trained for for over 4 months and had to pull out.. Initially, I started running on grass to boost mileage and avoid shin splints, then grass running just took over and I really feel that it ultimately contributed to my injury.

Now I am training for Barcelona in 5 weeks~ and am doing everything on road except my recent speed sessions (mile reps/800s/1ks). Im doing these on grass and I'm really getting the value from the sessions and it allows me to run again the next day.

To sum up: Grass is great to have in your arsenal for a day when your legs are tired from the roads or when you're doing faster than MP repeats but don't rely on it!

That's my two cents!