Cross Training: Running

[woollypigs]

Set out to do 6km came back after 10km and 500m up. Longest and highest run ever. (Yes I walked a bit but that's ok as a trail runner)

Leg's still working as legs, which is a shock.

[woollypigs]

Yesterdays run was nearly 8km, 192m altitude, where most of it was on good (very enjoyable cycling where you don't lose fillings or have too keep a eye out for pot holes) forest fire roads, legs hurt. Today's nearly 3km on a flat forest hard packed "smooth" gravel, think park track where you can easy push a pram, with only 19m of altitude, legs hunted more. Same happened a few months ago, when I tried to run around on the streets, since no tails were nearby. Other than boring me to death the road run was really painful for a few days afterwards.

Where previous runs like the nearly 10km, 715m altitude, run on Pyrenees mountainous tracks, or any of the 5km and 250m+ on narly, rocky, where is the track, roots, scree, trails, I think I found the track again, sheep, up and down mountains in and out of deep forest tracks. Legs are a bit tired a wee rest and some water later I'm walking normally.

But the flatter/uniform/smooth the surface it the more painful the legs are. From ankle and about 6" up all around is painful and even after stretches they are hurting for a good day after. And if I forget to move the legs they are rather sore/painful when taking the first steps after a sit down.

[chrisbainbridge]

That is why Kipchoge manages a couple of marathons per year and kilian jornet races every week.  The difference in impact from tarmac or pavement is massive.

[The Family Cyclist]

Got out Monday with the intention of going out for about half hour, as was round town had headphones on as didn't need country lane or bridleway awareness. Just got fully in zone, switched off thinking and turned on legs. Weather was threatening heavy rain and a cold wind so had a cycling windproof gillet on but that soon went into the bum bag as warmed up. Did the half hour but felt good and again was still running steady rather then too fast then walk so thought would keep going and ended with 12km with my second fastest ever 10km. Hopefully can find time for more runs and need to sign up for something to aim at

[tom_e]

That is why Kipchoge manages a couple of marathons per year and kilian jornet races every week.  The difference in impact from tarmac or pavement is massive.

Do you think it is mostly the difference in impact?  I wondered if it might be more in the variability - that on a smooth hard surface you are repeating exactly the same movement every time, and wearing exactly the same points of cartilage, muscle or tendon over exactly the same range every time.  Whereas on a varied surface those movements will be irregular and so perhaps not hit the same concentration in one place over the run. 

I'm thinking that the over-regular movement might cause problems more akin to RSI than simple over-use, but I don't know if that's a valid comparison.


Personally I just greatly prefer the nature of trail running, and if I could run 50% faster and 50% further on tarmac I still wouldn't choose to do it.  But some people care about those things more.

[toontra]

Do you think it is mostly the difference in impact?  I wondered if it might be more in the variability - that on a smooth hard surface you are repeating exactly the same movement every time, and wearing exactly the same points of cartilage, muscle or tendon over exactly the same range every time.  Whereas on a varied surface those movements will be irregular and so perhaps not hit the same concentration in one place over the run. 

Interesting point.  I'd have thought that modern decent running shoes would significantly mitigate the impact effect of tarmac so perhaps the answer lies elsewhere?

[chrisbainbridge]

I think both are correct and different aspects of the same.

[Feanor]

15k hill run today, and I prefer off-road for all the reasons mentioned above.
No car available, so 48k round-trip by bike to and from the start point.

Was nice when the sun came out, but that was not often.
Cold, with frequent short squally hailstorms passing through.
Feeling a bit knackered now.

[toontra]

15k hill run today, and I prefer off-road for all the reasons mentioned above.
No car available, so 48k round-trip by bike to and from the start point.

Out of interest what do you do about securing the bike, taking running clothing, etc  when you cycle to/from a run?

[Feanor]

15k hill run today, and I prefer off-road for all the reasons mentioned above.
No car available, so 48k round-trip by bike to and from the start point.

Out of interest what do you do about securing the bike, taking running clothing, etc  when you cycle to/from a run?

I had a small rucksack containing my running kit, which also which had a small cable lock in it.
The car park is in a fairly remote location, off a not-very-busy road.
The bike was not visible from the road, it appeared as an un-inviting car park that you would have no reason to enter unless you were going to go up the hill, which no-one else was doing today.

I locked the bike to the best thing available ( a fairly sturdy fencepost in this case, with enough runs of fencewire above to prevent it just being lifted off).
My cycling kit was left in the rucksack, and the cable lock passed through that too.
There was nothing to stop anyone opening and rummaging in the rucksack.
My bike Garmin was removed from the bike and left in the rucksack, too.

So fairly minimal security, really.
But good enough for this scenario.

There's a photo of the arrangement on my Strava post here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/11260988993

[toontra]

Thanks for that.  I do something similar but being in London I use sturdier locks and a racktop bag for cycling stuff with a cable lock through the handles.

[woollypigs]

I think the main reason why I got into running was Beau Miles. Now he got another brilliant video out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi3ypXOCTao "Six golden rules of ultrarunning bootcamp"

[mrcharly-YHT]

Do you think it is mostly the difference in impact?  I wondered if it might be more in the variability - that on a smooth hard surface you are repeating exactly the same movement every time, and wearing exactly the same points of cartilage, muscle or tendon over exactly the same range every time.  Whereas on a varied surface those movements will be irregular and so perhaps not hit the same concentration in one place over the run. 

Interesting point.  I'd have thought that modern decent running shoes would significantly mitigate the impact effect of tarmac so perhaps the answer lies elsewhere?

Yes and no.
I believe that modern running shoes operate more like springs than shock absorbers. That means that as your foot comes down, the foam stuff compresses. Then it rebounds, pushing back up.

so immediate impact on joints reduced, but peak loading to tendons and muscles actually increased.

This makes sense; can you imagine marketing a running shoe that intentionally lost energy?

Running offroad, I think we are inclined to take smaller 'tiptoing' steps that don't load the tendons as much.

[woollypigs]

Today's run was not had. Because of some random shooting and booms. So we drove 60km away and yet more booms and bangs, that scared the new mutt. Couldn't leave her alone or take with, so we moved elsewhere where sadly there are no running trails but at least no boom/bangs

Dunno what the French are playing at as it's not hunting season and it does not sound military either"

[chrisbainbridge]

First ever parkrun yesterday. Good fun at a newish local run. 31 minutes so room for improvement

[The Family Cyclist]

Been running a fair bit recently and speed has increased a lot. Weather's crap today but needed some exercise to help get me out off the mope slope as being a grump is called in my house

Just went for a fairly short one and from start felt fast, also felt wet but that's cos it's raining. Pushed hard on second leg and then really pushed downhill for last km, stopped under a bridge and stopped strava as allowed a cooling walk home


Looked at strava and by eck 4:11 minutes per km for around 6km wasn't expecting that. Then looked at map. All over the shop and clearly lost signal for a while

A quick multimap and had timed on watch puts it at 7km in 31 minutes so around 4:25 per km which is possible as felt fast (for me) but annoyed its not properly recorded

Will have to have another go later in week and have restarted phone as that solved last time strava did this as normality just airplane mode at night and use for alarm

[woollypigs]

One good thing about running, is my lower back. Always had issues with it, didn't get to do military service because of it, doctors et al just ignore it and often said it's because of your mum as she too had a very curved lower back.

Then when I was sick, as some of you might recall, I went to every one I could to hopefully shed some light on the issues. One sport physio, I think he was, told me the reason for my issue was tight hip flexers.

Low and behold after regular stretching when we did Pilates my lower back never moaned.

Now, we don't do Pilates, I'm trying to remember to stretch before and after a run. I feel that my back is stronger but best of all no issues with my lower back.

* woollypigs knocks on wood