Old , Ugly and slow
I have been running trails for about a year because I like it and it is better for my knees.
I run 1 -2 minutes slower on the trails vs roads.
I only live a mile from several trails and have not run on the roads for about 6 weeks and only 18 times this year.
Will just running on dirt and grass make me slower.
first race sept 1977 last race sept 2007
2019 goals 1000 miles , 190 pounds , deadlift 400 touch my toes
I think it depends on the sort of trails you are running. If the footing is difficult than yes, I think you will lose some speed over time. Mixing in some easier runs on the road, rail trail, or even the track will help you retain your pace. Variety is the spice of life so they say.
In dog beers, I've only had one.
Pace Prophet
Slower for what?
If you're just running on trails, you will be slower on the roads, but you're not running on roads, you're running on trails, and so just running on trails will make you faster, eventually, on trails. Um. That probably didn't make sense.
If you're planning to do any road racing, a couple of runs on the road will remind you of the pounding and will let you get the speed feeling going again. But speed comes from muscular strength, and hilly trails will build muscle. So you won't be permanently slower on pavement, if you want to race on pavement, but you should run a few times on pavement before the race.
Endless trails
Like others have said I think it kinda depends on your goals. If you were training
for a specific race it's best to train on the terrain of the goal race, and that in turn
would help your endurance/speed. Unless the trails are smooth and flat your
pace will be slower simply due to the terrain. My road 10k time is much faster
than my trail 10k, but it's much cooler to bomb down the hills in a trail 10k.
I don't think it'll necessarily make you slower running just trails, but the experience
is much sweeter.
Occasional Runner
Overall, yes. And probably more prone to injury. I always encourage people to get a healthy dose of road miles because it helps with turnover and it toughens up your tendons and soft tissue.
Will run for scenery.
Also, in some places (the best ones !) trails mean lots of steep up and down, whereas roads are usually comparatively flat. In my (fairly newbish) experience, running up and down steep hills has a completely different form, with different neuro-muscular patterns that your body (reptilian brain ?) just has to adapt to. If I haven't run anything flat and smooth for a while, I find it feels a little bit foreign to me.
I did some fast (for me) TM miles last night, and my body definitely feels like I did something "new".
Stupid feet!
Stupid elbow!
Yes, I think it does. Roads are good for turnover and fairly constant HR - if I spent all of my time on technical trails, I would gain strength but would worry that I'm sacrificing turnover and overall aerobic fitness. I like to keep variety in my running for that reason - roads and the occasional track workout help round out your training.
Depends on trails and your goals. They will provide more diversity to your running and likely improve strength and agility. Downhills can make for good speedwork if you take the time to build up to them. I run mostly trails, but do run roads for about 10 min to get to my out-my-door trails, but drive to my others. I'll pick less technical trails when I'm working on speed on consistent cardio (hard to keep HR up on downhills on my rolling hills). I'll do an occasional run on paved bike path when the trails are too wet or I want to do something like a tempo or stretch out my legs.
I think mixing it up is good, but if you push the level of effort up on the trails, I don't see why it wouldn't increase your speed on more even terrain. Sometimes I will do tempo runs on the trail and long runs on the road, and vice versa.
LB2
Variety is the spice of life. I noticed that I've gotten really slow this year. When I analyze my training I see that I'm spending less time on the bike, no time on the treadmill and less short fast road runs. In other words, I'm spending most of my time doing longer runs including a lot of long trail runs where I dial back the intensity in favor of endurance. My leg turn over is slow and my cardiac endurance sucks. Yes I believe that if you run trails exclusively you will get slower. I just find it very hard to work on speed work on the type of trails I run.
An exception would be that when you start running technical trails your skills improve and your times improve. That happened to me, however, this year as I focused on mostly trails I have slowed down.
I may be better able to answer this question next year this time as I plan on spending more time on the treadmill and working on speed over the winter.
Simple answer--YES
If you want to run fast, you have to train fast. Pretty damn simple really. There is no way you can get the turnover and consistent uniform pacing and stride on trails. Now I can't site any studies or post a link but in my experiment of one over 3 decades of running I'm pretty much convinced.
Now that being said you can still train fast on trails and I think you can actually become much stronger and probably be able to avoid some types of injuries and it's a whole lot more fun. But in the end speed is about a whole number of training elements put together for race day and turnover is a pretty big part of it.
What everyone has said makes sense.
next week I will start with one road run.
I don't really agree that running trails makes a runner slower. Trails make you stronger. Sure you might have to do a few "refresher" runs to get your legs to remember the turnover, but then all the strength gained from the trails comes into play. Its not as if doing all your runs on trails leaves you out of shape or less fit or something. Around here, at least, I have to run an almost prohibitively faster pace on the typical road run to reach a comparable relative difficulty (that heart-bursting out of my chest feeling) to what I get on the trails. The burn of speedwork on a track comes easy on the trails...while moving at a pace which would be ridiculously slow on any other surface. The don’t say that hills are speedwork in disguise for nothing. I’ve spent months at a time running exclusively on trails, hopped into a short road race and immediately set Prs.
http://www.valleyrunningclub.org/
I’ve spent months at a time running exclusively on trails, hopped into a short road race and immediately set Prs.
But I would counter that by saying "that's great, but maybe if you were doing a consistent speed session of some type on the road or track just maybe you would have been even faster." Don't you think that is possible? Maybe you're still nowhere near your own personal potential but I would argue if it's speed you're after that some sort of track or road sessions will get you closer to your potential. Of course if you're doing what you love and improving that can be just fine and good enough. And I realize track workouts are not for everyone.
Enough posters did say that with certain workouts on the trails you can still improve if you are going to train only on the trails. Certainly hill repeats and tempo type runs work well on the trails but virtually any program out there to follow for hitting a new goal racing will have you do sessions of speed at a pace faster than what you would need to carry for that particular distance. If a runner can hit those goals without the speed sessions again I would argue that they are not even approaching their potential and how much faster they could be with proper speed workouts integrated into the program.
I think it's also worth noting that here in Madison where the Badgers have been one of the nations top ranked cross-country teams for years that they spend an awful lot of time at the track and doing speed sessions on the road. Hmmm. Makes one wonder a little.....
Personally for me I don't give a crap. I don't see the Olympics in my future, I just love doing the speed and tempo workouts even if I am old and crippled.
But I would counter that by saying "that's great, but maybe if you were doing a consistent speed session of some type on the road or track just maybe you would have been even faster."
That may be true, but it was not the question that was asked. The question was "Will just running on trails make you slower."