| BreakItDown |
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I'm interested to see people's weekly mileage on average broken down into surface types/environments they run in. For example, you run 60mpw - 50% of that is on soft trails 10% on grass 30% on track 10% on concrete/tarmac In particular, is there any guys here running 50+mpw and doing the vast majority of this on concrete? Are you more vulnerable to injury and slower recovery from workouts/long sessions? What about people with insight into the ways in which elite level atheletes are training, do these guys run as little as possible on concrete and try to keep it to soft ground trails as much as possible? I'm recovering from injury and find I can run well on trail/grass but still not 100% on concrete. It's got me thinking I could actually avoid concrete 95% of the time and I think this could help me alot in my training both from injury prevention and recovery from runs. Any proper thoughts/insight/advice etc would be great, always good to hear from peoples experiences. |
| J Co |
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70-80 mpw average 75% on concrete/asphalt The remainder on trails and the track I've never really had any major injury issues (knock on wood). I don't really notice a difference with recovery based on the running surface. I also do all of my miles in racing flats. I remember reading somewhere that a softer running surface doesn't necessarily mean less impact stress and fewer injuries. Something about how your body compensates with a harder foot strike on softer surfaces. |
| roadie |
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I run 50-60 miles a week: 90% on asphalt and ~10% on concrete (sidewalks and concrete backroads). Always have. Never had an injury. Have no idea how it affects recovery compared to soft surfaces as I've never trained on them. I make do with what I have and don't think about it. |
| Mover |
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I run about 70% grass 30% hard surface Sometime I feel ankle pain when I'm on grass; I then move to the pavement and the pain lessens. I may try a week or two on more hard surfaces and see how my ankles feel. |
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I run about 90 miles/week and probably do about 30% on paved surfaces, 30% on dirt trails and back alleys, 35% on grass and 5% on the track. These numbers are for good weather months. In the Winter, most of my mileage is on paved surfaces and, even if it isn't, the ground is usually frozen and lumpy, so even worse than running on concrete. In the Winter, I might also occasionally hit the treadmill for a tempo workout if the roads and weather are crap. I do all my running in flats or lightweight trainers and have had fewer injury problems since I made the switch. When I first started running competitively, I got several tibial stress fractures and began avoiding paved surfaces like the plague. Then, when I started doing 90% of my running on soft but uneven surfaces, I started having chronic achilles problems. Lately, I've been trying to mix up the surfaces as much as possible and have stayed reasonably healthy for the past 6 months, knock on wood. |
| Saul Goodman |
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Currently 75mpw 20% track 70+% some sort of trail (soft shoulder, dirt, gravel, etc) 10-% other (crossing a street, getting out of or into parking lot at work where I start 5 runs/wk, wood footbridge, etc). That's assuming just a training week. If I hop in a road 5k on the weekend, the numbers change very slightly. I ran a half marathon a while back and those numbers would be way off. |
| BreakItDown |
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Thanks for all the input. Does anyone know how coaches/elite level athletes view this? Are they likely to be a mix like runners on here, or does it seem there is a strict opinion on keeping pro's on softer ground as much as possible? I personally before injury was running 50-60mpw and 85% of that was on road/concrete. Once I am back to 100% I am going to vary this a hell of alot more any chance I get and see how that goes. I alternated between Boston3 and Adios shoes, both lightweight shoes in their own right really and I don't know if that combined with alot of concrete miles caused me my injury...... |