Five Reasons to Hit the Dirt, Road, and Track
We’re now well into the spring/summer racing season with the weather heating up and goals looming on the horizon. Whether it’s a 10K, Marathon PR, first trail 50 miler, it’s out there and getting closer by the day.
While that is usually enough to keep us motivated to train, it isn’t always the case. As we get into a training routine, our bodies start breaking from too much stress and doing the same thing every week; and we find that it gets tougher and tougher to get out the door each day. We sometimes get a little too focused on the specific training for that goal and miss out on a lot of good training if we just mixed it up a little.
I’ve always had my own ways of dealing with this feeling and it always involves getting off the beaten path. I don’t necessarily mean dirt. At the risk of turning this into another article about the great benefits of trail running that you’ve all heard many times before, I’m going to attempt to spin this in a different direction, and extol the benefits of every surface you can run on. It’s not just about getting on the nice soft trail for a recovery run. There are huge benefits to a good hard road run or jumping on the track for intervals.
Instead of just sounding off on all my advice about why I think you should get out and do something a little different, I’ve asked some of the Northwest’s most dedicated and long-time runners why they might find themselves dirtying their clean road shoes or jumping on the track if their goal is a trail race during peak training season.
The Trail: Mind and Body Wellness Therapy
The most resounding and common theme among most runners is that it helps with injury prevention and helps center the mind to either more immediate thoughts or mind wandering, depending on the person. I will give both an emphatic “yes!” Trail running will in theory do great things for your lower legs and help fight overuse injury by helping strengthen and activate muscles that don’t see the same use during a road run, but I caution the underdeveloped trail runner to not fall in the trap that if a tree root decides to jump up and grab you, there are fuzzy bunnies and soft piles of pine needles lying in wait to break your fall. No, in fact if you look out at the forest you’ll see logs, rocks, and other obstacles that trails run perilously close to, sometimes over. And yes, they will injure you. But overall, they’re good for getting a nice recovery run on soft surfaces and a great mental escape from the monotony of the training focused solely on pace.
“Too much time on the roads or track is soul crushing for me” says Lauren Fleshman, a US 5000m Champion and frequent runner of buff singletrack. “I always make time for a trail run when I need to get back in touch with my love of running, especially when competition season is in full swing and I need regular reminders of the freedom and ease of the sport to balance it out.” Lauren recognizes that training is more than just training hard. It takes a lot of mental balance to be able to compete and train effectively.
“The trail has no negative self-comparisons,” says Kate Grace, a Oiselle national class 1500m runner recently transplanted to Bend from the East Coast, highlighting what may be the best reason for a type-A road or track athlete to escape to the trails. “It's hard to compare paces, because of the different terrain and elevations (and, usually Garmins aren't accurate with tons of tree cover). That allows me to go by feel for recovery runs, and not get mental if the pace on my watch is way off.”
Lauren also recognizes that if you can avoid roots then “moderate trail running is foot bone insurance” and can be great injury prevention.
Jake Puzey adds that “in addition to the recovery benefits, trails strengthen my feet and lower legs, improve agility, and increase overall strength through continual climbing and descending of hills.” You shouldn’t underestimate the benefit of doing a fast performance workout such as a tempo or even intervals on the trail, either. Both will work on coordination, mind/body connectedness, and power in other planes of motion that one-dimensional surfaces can’t deliver.
The Track: That Lightning Fast Feeling
Track athletes don’t have to be reminded of what makes them faster. They know that in order to get faster they have to run fast…on the track. It sounds simple, but the concept can be lost on many road and trail athletes that don’t see the benefit of running uninhibited and timed around a small oval.
“One good reason would be to do a “time trial” to gauge fitness,” says Carrie Dimoff, Olympic Trials Steeplechaser, XC athlete, and Portland, OR resident. “I like to step onto the track every once in a while and check my best time at a certain distance vs. my best time at that distance in a previous training cycle. It gives me confidence that I can meet or beat my previous time.”
Kate Grace says that she likes the track to get “that lightning fast feeling” while “practicing even tempo, cadence, and form, with no distractions,” and “even with Garmins, grass loops, etc., it's sometimes calming to know exactly where you are at any point in the interval. And have no question about how it compares to other workouts.” Rose Wetzel, a 1500m runner, obstacle racer, and personal trainer from Seattle agrees: “Tracks are great for interval training because it's the best way to get the most accurate pace. If you want to run intervals at 5:30 mile pace, for instance, you can check your pace every 200 meters rather than rely upon a Garmin, which can be off by a fair amount sometimes.
But David Laney, 2:18 marathoner, 2013 Chuckanut 50K winner, and Ashland, OR resident, says it best, “The track is a pristine surface, the oval is perfectly flat and flawless. There are a lot of benefits of running on a surface that maximizes energy return with every step. On the track your workouts are regulated, controlled, consistent, and fast. Whether you are getting ready for a trail 50 mile or road marathon, the controlled environment of the track allows you to punish your body in a very acute manner. Your training may call for blitzing quarter miles or hammering out mile repeats. Either way, when you get back on the trail or road you will be faster.”
The Road: Provider of Punishment and Performance
For many of us the road run is the default run. It is the only option out the door between kids, naps, or work breaks, but believe it or not there’s some real benefit to seeking out a road run, especially a fast one, if it’s not a normal occurrence in your weekly mileage.
“The road will beat up your legs, and that’s a good thing” says Laney. ”As we all know, asphalt is much harder on your legs than dirt. We avoid asphalt to save the legs, but sometimes there is a value in beating up the legs. Pounding the pavement will get your legs accustomed to that feeling of the end of a race” and give you the fatigue resistance in your muscles to make it to the finish line with strength.
Laney also adds that it will help “improve your aerobic threshold” when executed properly. “Running in the hills is amazing, but with uphill comes downhill” and a highly varied heart rate. “Maintaining a consistent heart rate and effort for 30-60 minutes is often challenging on the trails. Jumping on the nearest bike path or country road for threshold or tempo run is something I do at least once a week and believe it leads to dramatic improvement in every distance from mile to 100K.”
The road and the track are very controlled surfaces, which are the best for efficiency development. Even trail runners will benefit from developing some efficiency on the road or track.
Each of us is different, though, and Grace says of herself, “I don't like hard surfaces. I know it's mostly mental. But isn't that just as important! I guess roads are beneficial to change up the scenery, when I get sick of the trails. Or for lazy days when I just want to head out the door. But the best benefit I get is in up-tempo work. If you want to hit a fast pace, for confidence reasons in the lead up to a race, that hard/fast surface can be a nice boost.”
All too often we focus TOO much on the task at hand and our training becomes one-dimensional. Training for a trail race becomes all about running as much trail as we can. When training for a road marathon, every run becomes a run of varying intensity, but always on the road. Rarely do track athletes ever just run on the track but there are good reasons to run on the road or trail other than just to fill in weekly mileage.
Max Ferguson, the Orcas Island 50K champ, trail runner, and Seattleite describes the benefits of different surfaces like this: “variation helps stave off plateauing, and increases the muscular and cardiovascular response of ALL training stimulus. In normal person speak, the more you change it up, the better your body responds. The better your body responds, the faster you get. Speed work isn’t the catalyst for making you faster, it simply helps magnify the results of your consistent training.” Every run has some benefit no matter what surface you’re running on and varying the surface builds strength from weakness. The Northwest not only has some of the best trails, but roads and tracks as well. Go find your local secret workout route.
