Forums >General Running>half marathon struggle
Hi,
I'm an older female runner (56) who has run off and on since my 20s. Just recently I started running longer distances, and I've run in three half marathons. One, gently sloping hills, road, went really well, felt great but the other two (same event, trail, graduate downhill) were hard -- lots of joint and muscle pain.
I trained the same for all, which is to say 30-40 slow miles/week. I have osteoporosis so speed and high impact are not advisable.
Can someone tell me if route that is a gradual downhill slope could have caused such a difference in my experience? What about roads?
Thanks so much for any advice!
#RunEveryDay
There are a lot of things that could impact the race -- higher mileage on shoes in later races, weather, consistency in training, overall health. If you are logging your runs to RA, making your log public might give people more information to work with.
Half Fanatic #9292.
Game Admin for RA Running Game 2023.
Running fast with a lot of downhill can impact the quads a lot and may impact your knees as well. You may also have been using different muscles for the trail run than you do for the more repetitive road racing. Roads are generally faster than trails, so if you were pushing to maintain a similar pace that could also make a difference in the amount of impact you felt afterwards. Did you do a lot of training on trails, or was most of it on roads?