Bookwerm wrote:
9/10 the injury is because your probably running entirely on the roads, or doing a majority of your mileage on the roads. Back in the day, werent the shoes runners trained in basically flats? they were generaly just a piece of rubber on the bottom of the foot. I trained in flats for along time and never got injured, because i ran most of my weeklymileage, if not almost all my weekly mileage purely off-road.
I'm pretty sure that surface is somewhat irrelevent as long as you have good running technique and the right shoes. I'd say 9/10 injuries come from overuse, not running surface. I'm pretty sure Lydiard, who was a minimalist by most, advocated doing a lot of road running becasue the harder surface allowed for better push off. And Gordon Pirie also a minimalist talks about doing a lot of road running in his book that can be dowloaded from:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Pressbox/2204/Where he states, "Good technique requires the runner to caress the ground with his or her feet, and to land with a slightly flexed knee. But what do we see in the majority of cases? Straight-legged “runners” pounding the ground with their heels. They end up crippled. People are advised not to run because it will ruin their feet and knees. In 45 years, I have run more than 240,000 miles without any major problems, and with more than half that distance covered on so-called hard pavement. Have I been lucky? No. I have merely employed correct technique, as described, and have been careful about the shoes I wear."