Soft surface running and its impact on marathon training

Ask those dudes who train in the rift valley if they should be pounding it out on the 'crete more often. Sticking to soft surfaces is a great idea and if you put the miles in you'll be fine and proper workouts you'll be fine. The increased proprioception from running on softer surfaces minimizes contact between the foot and whatever surface you're running on, thus less pounding.

I would continue as you are - get most of my runs in on soft surfaces, but get at least one main run in per week on asphalt or pavement in order to callous yourself for the surface you plan to race on. For marathon training, perhaps your long run, or marathon-pace run would be best, but I'm not sure about this.

To "pavetheworld"'s point, I don't have a link, but I am certain that I saw in a video about some Kenyan marathoners' training that they were traveling an hour or two once a week to get in their "tarmac" run. What was this special run that prompted them all to pile in a truck to ride to? Pavement. It stuck in my mind because it was very much the opposite of how many of my friends train - pavement all week, and then drive 30 miles on the weekend to get to the dirt trails.

Thanks for the response. I think I might stick with one workout per week such as a 60 min marathon pace run as the one main run I keep on the roads. I feel like the benefits of keeping the long run on the soft surfaces overrides any callousing effect I'd get from doing them on the roads. We shall see... I'll be interested to see how Rupp and Farah handle their first marathon and if Salazar will talk about their prep with respect to surfaces at all.

pavetheworld wrote:

The increased proprioception from running on softer surfaces minimizes contact between the foot and whatever surface you're running on, thus less pounding.

Speculative at best. If the surface is softer you're going to be spending more time on it, not less.

I think if guys are running 120+ that it is not going to matter! but I think for most of the rest of us doing some runs on the roads is a good idea

luv2run wrote:

I think if guys are running 120+ that it is not going to matter! but I think for most of the rest of us doing some runs on the roads is a good idea

I think you've got cause and effect reversed. Those 150 mile guys in Kenya are able to do that volume BECAUSE they are running on soft surfaces. Similarly, if you go to Kenya, you see them running on those red clay roads (that is, roads, not narrow trails that you can turn your ankle on) and you see 13:00 guys getting very hard cardiovascular workouts, but running much slower due to altitude. As a result, the muscular and skeletal loads are much less than many groups in the USA, and as a result they can get in more hard training.

Nobody ever switches to roads full time. Ever.

luv2run wrote:

I think if guys are running 120+ that it is not going to matter! but I think for most of the rest of us doing some runs on the roads is a good idea

This^

When you are running THAT much everything is going to amplified. For those of us doing 50-60miles I doubt it makes much of a difference at all.

Canova:

The reason because Kenyan marathon runners this year were weaker than last year, is very simple :

In Kenya we had almost 3 months of continuous rain, and training was not ok in every part of the Country. [...]

The big problem with Kenyans is they refuse to train on tarmac also when the roads are muddy and dangerous. The only group I know accept to run on tarmac is the group coached by Claudio Berardelli (Biwott, Prisca and Rita Jeptoo and others), and Prisca and Rita were very ok.

Personally, I had several athletes injured during a period I was not in Kenya : Abel Kirui, Moses Mosop, Florence Kiplagat, Jonathan Maiyo, and all because of accidents running on muddy roads, full of holes and stones.

The big difference with Ethiopians is they normally use to have long run on tarmac, in one road used by all the groups.

This means that, also if the weather in Ethiopia was almost the same, they didn't suffer under the point of view of training as Kenyans.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5316310&page=2

FYI: you are correct about Salazar being hard-core about softer surfaces. On the other hand, he has exactly addressed your "concern": he says that when one of his guys is preparing for a marathon (on the roads obviously), that he will allow/make sure that that guy does some specific road training.

He is on the same page as you and some others on this thread: has them do almost all their running on soft surfaces, but when preparing for a long road race, has them do some specific work on roads to get used to surface.

Jaliet wrote:

Nobody ever switches to roads full time. Ever.

I pretty much did. I did most of my training on a horse trail in a big park or on a golf course for a couple years. I found that in the late stages of marathons my legs were going dead and I wondered if it was because I was not used to running on hard surfaces. So I cut way back on the running on horse trails and golf courses and spent a lot more time running on roads. The dead leg thing went away.

Salazar spoke in an interview saying that he has his marathon guys do a decent amount of workouts on the roads to prepare for the race. It sounds like they do workouts on roads and easy days on soft surfaces to prepare for the marathon.

Whoever runs the most miles, (total volume) in training will be in better condition. If you have to run on mostly soft surfaces to accomplish those miles then so be it. It doesn't put you at any disadvantage at all so long as you run some mileage on tarmac. Bill Rodgers could run 160 and 180 MPW because he avoided hard surfaces wherever he could. Whether it's a track, treadmill, or trail matters not. You are still running and getting in the miles. And Canova's point is re: hazardous/unpredictable surfaces. It has nothing to do with soft surfaces necessarily being bad.

He seems to have moved on, but in his honor:

"Keep it on the 'crete"