The Problem With Trail Running

At least, the trails that I often run, is they're technical mountain bike trails, and full of turns, dips, and uphills. You don't want to get too much speed on a bike there, because if you fall you're going ot do some serious damage. For a runner, this makes it tough to run quickly. On one hand, it should theoretically make you a better runner, because running on these trails makes any relatively flat course incredibly easy in comparison. But it's still disconcerting when I struggle to maintain any sort of speed for a distance.

On the trails, I can run at a 9:00 to 10:00 pace, and take walking breaks every 3-5 minutes to recharge my batteries, so I'll end up averaging an 11:00/mi pace overall, usually. On a 5 mile road course this past Saturday, my runs were all under 9:00, with a best of an 8:22 pace for 1/2 mile. I was holding back slightly, because we then did a 3.5 mile run 9 minutes after I finished the 5 mile course, once again running sub 9:00 laps, although I walked for a longer period of time to allow a new runner to catch up to me, but I still felt great with my speed. Finally, 6 hours after this, I did a 4 mile hash, which was half on the road and half in creeks and woods where you really couldn't run.

All in all, I did 12.68 miles on Saturday, with an 11:21 pace overall. And I felt good afterward! No problems Sunday morning, although legs were a little heavy Monday, and no pain. Yesterday, I ran 7.5 miles, and another 3.0 today, so I've done 10.5 for the week. And those 10.5 have been at a 12:11 average pace. Probably a little slower than usual, as I'm still not used to the longer weekend runs, and pushed a little too hard on Saturday, but that's a fairly accurate representation of my trail speed. On the 3 miler today, the last two-tenths of a mile were in the open, on a gravel path, but I didn't really recognize the difference until I saw that I ran that .2 with an 8:13 pace, without trying. I mean to say, I wasn't attempting to sprint the last section, just to run it, and I didn't realize my speed until I uploaded the courses to my computer. This is confirmation that I really should spend more time on the open courses, instead of tight trails, so that I can work on my speed and stamina. I should try to find a track around me that I can run at.