ANyone else experience noticeably slower recovery while running mostly on hard surfaces?
When I spent half of my mileage on grass I felt fresh within the next 24 hrs. But now, doing 80% of my mileage on concrete, even easy runs take 2 days to fully recover from.
I'm the complete opposite- was injured frequently (bone injuries) when I ran a lot on grass/dirt, and have felt significantly better being 90+% on concrete. Even now, my legs get heavy and turnover slow if I run too much on soft surfaces. To each his own.
Solaire wrote:
ANyone else experience noticeably slower recovery while running mostly on hard surfaces?
When I spent half of my mileage on grass I felt fresh within the next 24 hrs. But now, doing 80% of my mileage on concrete, even easy runs take 2 days to fully recover from.
I hate to be that guy, but if your easy runs take 2 days to recover from, they're not easy runs. You need to go slower.
bump
Easy runs take 2 days to recover from? Geeeeeez. You got more than 2 problems.
You were most likely running slower on grass and dirt and now are picking up the pace on concrete.You bumped after getting the best advice already. Slow the f**k down...
Solaire wrote:
ANyone else experience noticeably slower recovery while running mostly on hard surfaces?
When I spent half of my mileage on grass I felt fresh within the next 24 hrs. But now, doing 80% of my mileage on concrete, even easy runs take 2 days to fully recover from.
Agree with the others who say that if a run takes you 2 days to recover from, it's not easy. An easy run should take you zero days to recover from.
That said, certainly running on hard surfaces beats you up more. It forces you to smooth out your stride some, no doubt but it beats you up more unquestionably. The way to minimize this is to actually run easily on easy days
Solaire wrote:
ANyone else experience noticeably slower recovery while running mostly on hard surfaces?
When I spent half of my mileage on grass I felt fresh within the next 24 hrs. But now, doing 80% of my mileage on concrete, even easy runs take 2 days to fully recover from.
1) I agree with those commenting on the fact that your "easy" runs are probably too fast, long or both.
2) The reason one can't run for as many hours per week as one can cycle, swim or cross-country ski is because of the microtrauma caused by impact forces; if one reduces those forces one should, in theory, be able to run more or recover faster from a given volume of training at a given heart rate. Running on softer surfaces, losing fat, running on a treadmill, running on a treadmill set to a modest incline, running on an
http://www.alterg.com/etc. are all ways to accomplish this...
It's because you are running faster on hard surfaces.