Doing workouts on the grass but racing on the road

Perfect, continue.

Sounds great if you are doing at least some workouts on the road at race pace if that is where you will race.

i do practically everything on grass or on forest paths, it is extremely easy on the joints. i will never make the excuse after a road race that my training on grass is the cause of my poor performance because i don't want my friends to die of laughter.

surface difference wrote:

I do some hard workouts on the grass, sometimes on the road, but the grass too, never the track. I know the surface can be a little slower, but l use spikes. I find it saves my legs, especially on real hard weeks. Anyone else do this? Any advantage? I also do 80% percent of my easy runs on the grass.

Will save your legs... sure, but you have to train fast to race fast... Same, to less extent, for road vs track

If you are doing longer road races ( marathon and up) you need to do some specific work on a road at race pace in the shoes you plan to race in. Preferably some longer runs/ time on your feet on the road also.

Think Specificity. Roads are hard and you will not be wearing spikes in a road race.

Your legs muscles need to get used to the pounding of a hard road surface (and/or you need to adapt your stride) or you and your performance will needlessly suffer in the closing miles of long road races.

sled puller wrote:

If you are doing longer road races ( marathon and up) you need to do some specific work on a road at race pace in the shoes you plan to race in. Preferably some longer runs/ time on your feet on the road also.

Think Specificity. Roads are hard and you will not be wearing spikes in a road race.

Your legs muscles need to get used to the pounding of a hard road surface (and/or you need to adapt your stride) or you and your performance will needlessly suffer in the closing miles of long road races.

I do both. It saves my legs, you just can't do session in and out on the road.

KAV wrote:

surface difference wrote:

I do some hard workouts on the grass, sometimes on the road, but the grass too, never the track. I know the surface can be a little slower, but l use spikes. I find it saves my legs, especially on real hard weeks. Anyone else do this? Any advantage? I also do 80% percent of my easy runs on the grass.

Will save your legs... sure, but you have to train fast to race fast... Same, to less extent, for road vs track

I alternate workouts, the strength ones are on the grass and fast are on the roads, plus l fly and feel faster when l go back to the roads.

surface difference wrote:

KAV wrote:

Will save your legs... sure, but you have to train fast to race fast... Same, to less extent, for road vs track

I alternate workouts, the strength ones are on the grass and fast are on the roads, plus l fly and feel faster when l go back to the roads.

i think that's a very solid plan for producing good results while staying injury free

sled puller wrote:

If you are doing longer road races ( marathon and up) you need to do some specific work on a road at race pace in the shoes you plan to race in. Preferably some longer runs/ time on your feet on the road also.

Think Specificity. Roads are hard and you will not be wearing spikes in a road race.

Your legs muscles need to get used to the pounding of a hard road surface (and/or you need to adapt your stride) or you and your performance will needlessly suffer in the closing miles of long road races.

Kenyans never do workouts on the road,only the grass or dirt tracks.

sdfkjbndsbvksndfklvnskdfvkj;sdfnvdfslvbn wrote:

surface difference wrote:

I alternate workouts, the strength ones are on the grass and fast are on the roads, plus l fly and feel faster when l go back to the roads.

i think that's a very solid plan for producing good results while staying injury free

Thanks!

KAV wrote:

surface difference wrote:

I do some hard workouts on the grass, sometimes on the road, but the grass too, never the track. I know the surface can be a little slower, but l use spikes. I find it saves my legs, especially on real hard weeks. Anyone else do this? Any advantage? I also do 80% percent of my easy runs on the grass.

Will save your legs... sure, but you have to train fast to race fast... Same, to less extent, for road vs track

If you run a few seconds slower because of the surface, dosen't mean you will not run faster when you hit the faster surface. An example, a guy runs 80 second 400s on a dirt path that is slow, but saves his legs, but turns around and run 400s the next week in 75 on a fast flat road or track. The same effort was there. Both workouts had the same benefits. He was working at the same effort.

surface difference wrote:

sled puller wrote:

If you are doing longer road races ( marathon and up) you need to do some specific work on a road at race pace in the shoes you plan to race in. Preferably some longer runs/ time on your feet on the road also.

Think Specificity. Roads are hard and you will not be wearing spikes in a road race.

Your legs muscles need to get used to the pounding of a hard road surface (and/or you need to adapt your stride) or you and your performance will needlessly suffer in the closing miles of long road races.

Kenyans never do workouts on the road,only the grass or dirt tracks.

That’s not true. I have seen for example the Wanders group and the Robertson twins groups use road in their training in Kenya

Trackfan55 wrote:

surface difference wrote:

Kenyans never do workouts on the road,only the grass or dirt tracks.

That’s not true. I have seen for example the Wanders group and the Robertson twins groups use road in their training in Kenya

Sometimes, but 9 out of 10 Kenyan session are eather on a slow track or fartlek or something on a dirt or grass. We don't see most Kenyans running session on the road. I know you can find one example or so, but it's because they train on slow surfaces, but race on faster. It avoids injury and makes you faster. Similar to altitude then going to sea level.

surface difference wrote:

Trackfan55 wrote:

That’s not true. I have seen for example the Wanders group and the Robertson twins groups use road in their training in Kenya

Sometimes, but 9 out of 10 Kenyan session are eather on a slow track or fartlek or something on a dirt or grass. We don't see most Kenyans running session on the road. I know you can find one example or so, but it's because they train on slow surfaces, but race on faster. It avoids injury and makes you faster. Similar to altitude then going to sea level.

This just is not true. It really depends on the group. You definitely do not see 9 of 10 workouts from Kenyan elite road runners on dirt or dirt tracks. The Wanders group did both hard efforts this week on a normal track and normal road. That is not 9/10, that is 2/2.

Sorry. Meant: This is not 1/10, this is 2/2.

Pikachu wrote:

surface difference wrote:

Sometimes, but 9 out of 10 Kenyan session are eather on a slow track or fartlek or something on a dirt or grass. We don't see most Kenyans running session on the road. I know you can find one example or so, but it's because they train on slow surfaces, but race on faster. It avoids injury and makes you faster. Similar to altitude then going to sea level.

This just is not true. It really depends on the group. You definitely do not see 9 of 10 workouts from Kenyan elite road runners on dirt or dirt tracks. The Wanders group did both hard efforts this week on a normal track and normal road. That is not 9/10, that is 2/2.

Videos? You produce one group as evidence. We are in agreement that MOST. If hard surfaces are the best they all or most Kenyans would do workouts on them.

surface difference wrote:

Kenyans never do workouts on the road,only the grass or dirt tracks.

In Kenya maybe. But I am quite sure that if they are getting ready to fly over for a major road race, they will do a few tempos on the tarmac at race pace in the right shoes. Or have some low-key tune-up sessions.

The recent book on the Ethiopians suggests many of them aim to run exactly once per week on the road.

surface difference wrote:

KAV wrote:

Will save your legs... sure, but you have to train fast to race fast... Same, to less extent, for road vs track

If you run a few seconds slower because of the surface, dosen't mean you will not run faster when you hit the faster surface. An example, a guy runs 80 second 400s on a dirt path that is slow, but saves his legs, but turns around and run 400s the next week in 75 on a fast flat road or track. The same effort was there. Both workouts had the same benefits. He was working at the same effort.

This. Most people here never trained a lot on soft surfaces, so they don't know this. The heart gets condition the same, without the pounding on the sinews, tendons, bones and ligaments. Someone who can run 70 mpw on roads could run 120 mpw on soft surfaces, with the same impact on the body and get MUCH fitter. The reason these Kenyan's (and teams like NOP) only train on soft surfaces is so they can run more, Kenyan's often run 3x a day doing massive mileage.

And the thing is - if you run on soft surfaces a lot, and then during the middle on the run you go on a short asphalt stretch, you will be insanely fast and notice how easy it is. If you've run thousands of miles at 7 min pace on soft surface, and go on asphalt you suddenly roll at 6:30 pace with no effort. You don't need special conditioning to run on harder surfaces like asphalt and track, except maybe when training for marathons since you need to prepare the legs for the pounding and impact.

I've seen Kipchoge and his team in Vienna during the 1:59 project, and they would always run on the horse path next to it instead of the official 1:59 asphalt course. Others observed elite Kenyan's do 400m loops on a football field in Berlin the days before the marathon instead of running through the city. They really go out of their way to stay on soft surfaces as much as possible!

eurodonkey wrote:

surface difference wrote:

Kenyans never do workouts on the road,only the grass or dirt tracks.

In Kenya maybe. But I am quite sure that if they are getting ready to fly over for a major road race, they will do a few tempos on the tarmac at race pace in the right shoes. Or have some low-key tune-up sessions.

The recent book on the Ethiopians suggests many of them aim to run exactly once per week on the road.

Key word ( once) ,the whole thread was about Most, with a few on the Road.