Salazar Interview, hard v. soft surfaces

I moved to NH last summer and have done almost all of my running on soft surfaces: grass and trails for distance and longer reps (300s); a college artificial turf soccer field for most speed work. I never run on the roads and do one set of repeats on the track each week. Last winter was virtually snowless in this corner of the state, so I was lucky. Will certainly have to resort to some roadwork most winter months. Bottom line is that all of my nagging injuries went away when I switched to soft surfaces. Times have improved too.

I would say anywhere between 40% and 50%. I could bump that up to 75% if I drove to run. Salazar talks about making sacrifices. Moving to an area which has soft terrain is a sacrifice. Probably less pay or no pay than a major city/metropolitan area. The Gouchers, Dathan, and Alan had to make that sacrifice.

I also agree on his comments on Boulder. The bike path is terrible to run on: concrete. The dirt roads are further out of town and pretty hard in themselves. With James Carney recently leaving Boulder, who else is left over there? Just Jorge?

I have spent my life in pursuit of soft surfaces and wouldn't be running without them. Deciding to live somewhere suitable is one of the best decisions a runner can make.

20 years ago I moved to London and vowed to stay within half a mile of Wimbledon Common; I've managed it so far. We have two huge parks and the Thames towpath all connected, another one (Bushy Park/Teddington) nearby. Anyone who can run in the daylight can get 60-80% of their miles off road. This corner of London is therefore home to numerous running clubs, many elite athletes, and the Kenyans and Australians whenever they are over here.

As a younger runner the best I could hit was about 30% soft surfaces; where I grew up was countryside, but most of it fenced off, and where I went to college it was typically 2 miles out of town to the open country. I hit my limit around 50-60mpw above which I'd get injured pretty fast. Moved to the soft stuff and 70 felt easy. (Of course now I have Letsrun and know I should have shot for 100...)

I think a more important factor than the bare percentage is where you do your fast reps and tempos. The pounding from banging our hard reps on the road is way greater than from doing an easy 2 mile warmup on the way to a park. A lot of my aches and pains come from hard road runs or long reps on road. Many top athletes have made a point of doing their reps on grass in winter, rather than track or road. Mick Woods' squad at Aldershot apparently have floodlit playing fields for intervals on winter evenings.

Then again, I know a few people - usually very skinny marathon types - who can knock out 100mpw on roads without problems. But only a few.

I believe that running on soft surfaces does make a major difference for most runners. From personal experience all of my running injuries have occurred when I was training mainly on the roads (80-90% roads). To the contrary, when I have trained primarily on trails I haven't had any serious injuries and I can typically maintain about 20-30mpw higher. For example, in college I typically ran about 80-90mpw on roads and felt like I was always on the verge of injury, whereas my first year out of school I was hitting 100-110mpw on the trails and felt like my body could handle even more mileage if necessary.

Obviously, it varies depending on the runner and plenty of people train primarily on roads but for me it makes a major difference what type of surface I'm running on.

I agree with the above post. I also think that trails discourage doing easy runs too fast and certainly can put less strain on the bones and I would assume the muscles as well.

Truth Sayer wrote:

I also agree on his comments on Boulder. The bike path is terrible to run on: concrete. The dirt roads are further out of town and pretty hard in themselves. With James Carney recently leaving Boulder, who else is left over there? Just Jorge?

I lived in Boulder and I did approximately 75% of my running on grass and trails. The bikepath along the creek has a dirt trail next to it for the majority of the path. I also ran a lot on the Mesa trail, up the trails to Flagstaff, up and down the hogbacks. I have always believed in running on as much grass and trails as possible and I was able to do that in Boulder.

Probably 75% is now on dirt trails. Have to run on asphalt to get to the trails is all. Tempo runs are on asphalt. Nice smooth dirt roads without a camber is the best surface IMHO. I find pine needles too soft and grass too uneven.

I think people should demand more dirt running trails from their cities.

I ran on the roads almost exclusively in high school. I had a lot of injuries. I ran almost exclusively on soft surfaces at college #1. I had almost no injuries despite running more and taking less time to build up to the mileage. I returned to the roads at college #2 and have had injury problems... I didn't make the connection until last spring. Unfortunately I got mono so it didn't matter.

I'm wondering how many people are able to sustain >70mpw running mostly on roads without injury. >90mpw?

Oregon4Life wrote:

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237340-adventures-in-europe-2010/352500-alberto-salazar-taking-on-athletes-needing-a-change

Starting at 3:30, Salazar talks about how he attributes the Gouchers' injury problems to running on hard surfaces in Boulder, and that Kara now does 90% of her running on soft surfaces.

I know the hard v. soft surface thing has been discussed at length, but how many of you are able to do a substantial percentage on soft surfaces? What percentage of your miles are done on soft surfaces?

Living in Eugene allows me ample access to softer trails, but I still don't do as many miles on non-bike paths as I probably should. I can't imagine how difficult it must be in less runner-friendly cities.

Thanks!

No kidding, I can't imagine averaging 130mpw in a city without soft trails. And Pre's trail is soft most of the year (sometimes too soft when new wood chips are first down, and sometimes harder when it needs new chips).

Having Pre's trail made it a smooth and relatively painless transition for me to move from 80mpw, to 130mpw in about 3 weeks. (Hey I was 20). Lots of sleep, massive carbs, soft surface, good times.

A Duck wrote:

Having Pre's trail made it a smooth and relatively painless transition for me to move from 80mpw, to 130mpw in about 3 weeks. (Hey I was 20). Lots of sleep, massive carbs, soft surface, good times.

You never ran 130mpw.

A Duck is a BS artist wrote:

A Duck wrote:

Having Pre's trail made it a smooth and relatively painless transition for me to move from 80mpw, to 130mpw in about 3 weeks. (Hey I was 20). Lots of sleep, massive carbs, soft surface, good times.

You never ran 130mpw.

He very well may have, I've certainly put in a few 130 weeks and months of 110-120 weeks. Like most above that was at least 65-75% on soft surfaces and that means choosing to run on grass next to a sidewalk whenever possible and obviously seeking dirt and bark trails.

I would have hated to run even 90 MPW with most of that on the pavement.

Most my injuries went away from switching to dirt roads after running on banked highways. I just bike to the dirt road, run and bike back. The biking is a great way to get some extra impact free workout done. Plus biking helps strengthen my knees, well at least I like think it does.

Duck Miles. Just divide the total running time by 3:50

Perspectivation wrote:

A Duck is a BS artist wrote:

You never ran 130mpw.

He very well may have, I've certainly put in a few 130 weeks and months of 110-120 weeks. Like most above that was at least 65-75% on soft surfaces and that means choosing to run on grass next to a sidewalk whenever possible and obviously seeking dirt and bark trails.

I would have hated to run even 90 MPW with most of that on the pavement.

Crossfit dont' care if the surface is hard or soft. Run less, crossfit more.

A Duck is a BS artist wrote:

A Duck wrote:

Having Pre's trail made it a smooth and relatively painless transition for me to move from 80mpw, to 130mpw in about 3 weeks. (Hey I was 20). Lots of sleep, massive carbs, soft surface, good times.

You never ran 130mpw.

As a matter of fact I did.

Late summer, early fall, before UO started classes and Dellinger started posting workouts/coaching the non cross country mid distance guys...

Perspectivation wrote:

A Duck is a BS artist wrote:

You never ran 130mpw.

He very well may have, I've certainly put in a few 130 weeks and months of 110-120 weeks. Like most above that was at least 65-75% on soft surfaces and that means choosing to run on grass next to a sidewalk whenever possible and obviously seeking dirt and bark trails.

I would have hated to run even 90 MPW with most of that on the pavement.

Exactly, I ran from about 20th, down across campus, by Oregon Hall, across the Mill Race bridge, over the Willamette took a right along the bike path by the river, and then cut over to Pre's trail. I averaged 18 a day, with a little extra on Sunday. So there was what, 4 miles a day on pavement etc. and the rest on the chips.

Nice choice CaptainRobbo. Moved to London in March and whilst I have Clapham Common on my door step and Battersea/Tooting Bec/Wandsworth all within a 10-15 minute jog but it's a real sod having to run 30 minutes on the road to get to Wimbledon Common (which is by far one of the nicest areas to run).

Couple of years time will only have to work in the City rather than alternating between there and the Docklands and planning to move to Wimbledon then.

I get a lot of my miles on the common which is all soft but unfortunately with a 9-5 job usually try and incorporate some of my runs into my commute which obviously is all on road.

growing up I played tons of basketball on concrete outdoor courts and had knee problems by the time I was 17.

I didn't even connect the two till I heard Cubs player Andre Dawson, who had knee problems, talking about how he expected that playing on natural grass at Wrigley would add several years to his career.

Luckily I took it to heart, ran only on grass or trails, and have not had knee problems in the thirty years since then.

I wish that every parks dept exec and urban planner bloviating about 'walkability' would watch this video.