My buddy Gordon pointed me to this NY Times article where the author looks at the question of whether or nor running on soft ground, aka trails, is harder on the body than running on roads.
The author starts off the article with this quote:
Hirofumi Tanaka, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, bristles when he sees dirt paths carved out of the grass along paved bicycling or running routes.
Purgatory trail section with rocks
Seriously, he “bristles?” As in, he gets angry with indignation? Now, why does Mr. Tanaka bristle with anger when he sees a trail heading out into the woods? He bristles, because he tried running on trail, to try to recover from an injury and got an unexpected result.
The result? “I twisted my ankle and aggravated my injury while running on the softer and irregular surface,” he said.
Hmmm, so, he was running on an irregular surface and twisted his ankle. Seems like par for the course if you’re not careful when you’re running on an irregular surface.
Bottom line, the article concludes that there is no, credible, scientific data that can back up the claim that running on soft ground is better or worse for you than running on hard ground.
There’s a good reason for that, said Stuart J. Warden, director of the Indiana Center for Translational Musculoskeletal Research at Indiana University. It’s too hard to recruit large numbers of people willing to be randomly assigned to one surface or another for their runs.
Here’s the money quote:
with no evidence that softer surfaces prevent injuries, there is no reason to run on softer ground unless you like to, Dr. Warden and other experts said. Dr. van Mechelen tells runners to get a pair of comfortable shoes and run on whatever surface they prefer.
Emphasis added.
Here are my 2 cents on this. I prefer running on trails, aka soft ground, because my legs and knees don’t hurt the next day like they do whenever I run on hard ground, aka pavement. Anytime I run on a road, the next day my knees are sore and they hurt. I never have that problem when I run on trails.
Me running
I also like to run on trails because there are no cars trying to run me off the road and I like to be able to breathe in air and not exhaust fumes. I feel sorry that Mr. Tanaka twisted his ankle while out on trail, I really do. I don’t know the circumstances around how that happened, but I can see that it was not pleasant for him.
My advice to Mr. Tanaka and other novice trail runners is this: Slow down. When you come to cross a creek bed (dry or not) or a rocky part of trail, or there are lots of roots around, slow down and walk through the area until the terrain smoothes out a bit. Seriously. Do that until you become intimately familiar with the trail or, your ankles get strong enough to keep you from twisting them.
