Forums >General Running>Trail miles OK for road marathon training?
Feeling the growl again
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
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Young Gun
www.HumanPotentialRunning.com
Hi Andy, I just started training for my second marathon and used a lot of trail running to recover from my first. I'm planning on using trails for a lot of my recovery workouts moving forward. Personally, I see two negatives about trails for marathon training: 1.) If you're running a road marathon, it's good - to a point - to get your legs used to pounding of the road. I'd actually done some of my 20milers on trails and felt that - because of this - I wasn't as tough as I could be. So my plan is to not do my LONG runs (over 15mi) on trails. 2.) If you're really looking to do intervals w/ pace training, the trails make it tough... I know that my local trails tend to slow me down about 70 seconds per mile due to terrain and elevation. Also, moving fast on trails means there's a greater likelihood of tripping. My fix for this is not doing intervals on the trails. But - like you - I love running on trails and think incorporating some trail running into my plan will be a good thing. M