Are you a road runner wanting to make a switch to trail running? On this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, Lindsey tells you what the basic differences between the two are. Trail running can be awesome to do, but having a bit of information before you start will make all the difference.

Transcript

Brad Brown: Welcome back to this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I hope you had a superb weekend. Lindsey Parry with me once again. Lindsey, a question in from Christine and she says she’s a casual road runner, she’d like to convert to trail. So what does she need to know about training? Should it differ to what she’s been doing on the road and what injuries or potential injuries should she be aware of and how can she prevent them?

Lindsey Parry: There’s a good crossover between road and off-road running. The main differences, and I suppose it does depend a little bit where you live. But the main, typical differences about trail running and road running is that trail hills, up and down, tend to be much more technical and a lot steeper, whether you’re going up or down.

On the one hand you can’t quite go downhill as fast as you may like to, because it’s tricky and technical and there might be some forced walking from that point of view. Then the ups are rather steep, so it’s not uncommon to walk.

The slight differences between road and trail running

The fitness is fairly similar, but what you would need to do is some specific running off-road, to get yourself properly prepared for that. The training gear and in particular the shoes are also slightly different. You’ll need a slightly different rubber compound, slightly different grip structure to the sole of the shoe.

Most brands nowadays make specific off-road versus on-road shoes. The off-roads also tend to be a little bit harder. Because gravel, which is what you run on most of the time when you’re running off-road is that the gravel is a little easier on your feet and your knees, so you can afford to be in a slightly harder shoe.

In terms of how would I adjust my training? Well, I’d probably focus a little less on speed work and I’d focus a little more on strength and hill work. Particularly because a lot of those climbs are so steep up and then again, so steep down. That eccentric loading coming down the mountains can be quite hard.

Then the final thing, just because you can’t really compare trail to road running in terms of times, is that you need to understand that you will be quite a lot slower on the trails than you are on the road. If you try and match your road paces on the trails, you’ll just end up being completely exhausted, almost as soon as the exercise starts.

BB: Awesome stuff, Christine, thanks for that question, Lindsey, thank you for your time as well. Don’t forget, next week Tuesday, it’s the 17th of May 2016, we are going to be hosting another one of our Comrades Marathon online seminars, make sure you join. It is the last one before Comrades, the website to get to, coachparry.com/comrades-marathon-webinar. Go check it out, the link is in the show notes to this episode.

We look forward to having you and talking you through race day and how to save yourself 20 minutes, so go check that out, it’s all on the website right now. We look forward to catching up then. Until next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.