What's the deal with pros training in the roads...

Roads offer consistent conditions. With today's shoes you can adjust the level of "softness".

There’s a lack of good places to run

this always perplexes me as well. Soft surfaces inarguably lead to fewer injuries and yet some people, even top pros, refuse to educate themselves on this...

I do think there is something behind training the legs for a hard surface race.

Plus these pros get to recover all day.

with how my body feels, i need that dirt

Inarguably? So even if runners don't get injured running lots of miles on roads, they can't disagree with you because you are the final arbiter of truth on the matter?

In my best years I found a long horse trail around a state park that I did most of my running on. I also started having trouble with my legs going dead in the second half of marathons. Eventually I decided the problem was that all that soft surface running wasn't preparing my legs for a long race on a road. So I started running on roads most of the time and the problem went away. It didn't lead to any injury troubles.

On top of that, not everyone has wood chips or soft dirt handy. If I wanted to run on something like that I'd have had no idea where I'd have done it for most of my life. Doing it now requires a bit of a drive. Grass is pretty handy for everyone if you're willing to run multiple laps around something like a soccer field. But for most of us running on a road is the handiest venue. And if injuries are an issue running on soft surfaces MAY help but that is far from given.

Yes. Just because someone doesnt get injured doesnt mean they are doing it right. when you run on soft surfaces not only is it less impactful on your legs so they dont get injured but they are also having to work a little harder compared to the easy bounceback of road running. So its a win-win. This is why the East African runners get injured less than the Western runners. Just because you are a braindead boomer who thinks we should still be doing things the way you did in the 80s to acheive your mile pr of 4:40 doesnt mean they arent educated. So yeah, soft surfaces are inarguably better than running on the road for training.

I think for most pros they would be able to choose a place to train and don't have the same limitations you might have in terms of finding wood chips or soft dirt.

I agree that you need to get your body used to running on the roads, but that can be done once, twice a week or frequently in the lead up to race.

If you are prone to injury stay off the roads as much as possible... not sure what the advantage of being injured is vs dead legs... but being healthy is the most important thing for a runner

If you read the research, you'll see that there is an argument to be had. It's not inarguable.

The surface you run on may or may not lead to certain injuries. One surface may leave you vulnerable to a type of injury, and another may leave you vulnerable to a different type.

You're more likely to get injured by doing too much if your body isn't ready or overdoing it. Most professional runners are probably riding that line to get the most out of themselves. The surface they run on probably isn't as much of a factor as some people might think.

I do believe many pros race on the roads, therefore must be wise to train a lot on roads.

Are these just your feelings?

I think the pros running on the roads all the time is pretty good proof that soft surface running is very overrated.

I did thousands of miles on roads without injury when I was at my peak. I have hundreds of runners running on roads without an impact injury. I'm NOT saying that no one ever gets injured by running on roads but we often times have athletes get injured because they are running on soft surfaces too.

Wood chips are white.

Roads are black.

Running on wood chips is racist.

Roads are woke.

Happy feet!

It's the New York Road Runners, not the New York Wood Chucks.

Nevermind soft vs hard surfaces, I’ve been surprised to see workout videos of pros running roads with fairly heavy vehicle traffic

The byu crowd seems to do it often and I remember a Beamish video with Ritz directing traffic at an intersection. You’d think if all you really had to do any given day was go for a run, you would drive out somewhere a little less busy

Keep it on the Crete!
Running on concrete is good for you! It makes you strong.

I completely disagree. I think people should run on soft surfaces when possible, but eventually it can make your legs soft and less responsive. Especially before races you should run on hard surface to toughen up the legs. Also its bad to goon before races so don't do that either

This may have changed recently, but unless it has there have been no studies showing that running on hard surfaces makes you more likely to get injured than running on soft ones does. My experiences and observations bear this out. I know there are many people who will say that they were always getting hurt when they ran on roads and need to stay on soft surfaces to stay healthy and that may be true for those people. But unless it's changed very recently there have been no longitudinal studies showing soft surfaces are less injury inducing than hard ones. Maybe someone here has found such a study.