10 running surfaces
Variety is the spice of running. Just as running in different types of shoes will challenge and stimulate your biomechanics, so will varying the surfaces you run on. You become more durable, with better lower leg strength and sharper reflexes. A more complete runner, let’s say. Runnersdaily casts a critical eye over what’s out there.
- Tarmac/asphalt. For many, this is the default running surface, the substance that much of the western world is covered in so that we can drive our cars around. There are different grades of Tarmac, depending on how much water the engineer who built the road wanted to run off (the rougher the grade, the better the water runs off it). It’s a flat, predictable surface, solid and fairly hard, so years of running on it in highly cushioned shoes will gradually switch off your nervous input to your feet, dullen your brain and cause you to want to wear pull-up nylon slacks and tartan slippers well before retirement age.
- Grass. We mean the playing-field, golf-course type of grass to be found in most parts of our green and pleasant land. It’s soft and forgiving, and it requires just a little more effort to run at your Tarmac speeds on. If it’s a trusted surface you can scamper around barefoot for fun, or do whole sessions in your Vibram Fivefingers. Recommended.
- Concrete. If Tarmac is hard, concrete is harder. Usually found in depressing industrial areas, although occasionally country paths like the South Downs Way have concrete chunks, possibly put there under duress by kindly farmers. Keep concrete out of your running life as much as you can.
- Moorland. The wild version of grass. Lumpy, bumpy ground with long swishy grass on it. I remember the thrill and terror verging on panic when, in my first ever fell race, having coped with the ascent and undualting stretches, I realised I had to run at speed down an impossibly steep slope of sodden moorland. No brakes, mental or physical, just total concentration on every footfall, knowing that an error could mean ankle meltdown. Now that’s the sort of running terrain that lights up your brain and helps prevent nylon-slacks-and tartan-slipper senescence. Go out and get some.
- Woodland. Ideal in the dry for racing flats or Fivefingers, in the wet for fell shoes, woodland trails are nice and mixed, and require constant stride adjustment to deal with things like roots and dips and puddles. A long trail lends itself to fartlek running: go fast when you can (where I live, it’s go fast when there’s a pitbull), go slow when you have to. It’s organic, man.
- Sand. Soft sand saps your leg strength and challenges your tendons, so it’s a perfect conditioning surface. Hill reps up a sand dune. Ouch. Your ego might not like going so slowly, though. Hard sand is great for barefoot running, especially sprinting. You’d be by the sea, too, which is usually a magical experience. New Zealand’s Ninety Mile Beach is a good choice…
- Track. I always feel that track surfaces plead with you to run fast on them. Give in to the pleading, I say, and take advantage of a perfectly even, slightly elastic surface to let rip on. Barefooters will enjoy, but synthetic tracks do abrade your soles a fair bit, so beware.
- Treadmill. I’m not sure what the human brain makes of running in place while the surface slips away behind you (though I once saw a woman bend down to tie her lace while on a moving treadmill, stop, and perform an impressive faceplant, so her brain was clearly struggling with the concept). It isn’t such a bad worst-case option - the surface is forgiving, no need for shoes on it - but making it a default is the potential problem.
- Cinder/gravel/hardpack. Sometimes tracks are cinder-based, such as the quirky track in London’s Regent’s Park, and you do get the impression that you might skid on the bends, but generally it is a great surface to run on, especially in grippy flats or Vibram Fivefingers.
- Snow. I once went snowshoe running in the French Alps. The snow was probably a bit too deep and wet, so my legs were weary and heavy after not long at all. But it was wonderful anyway. A big sky, crisp, clean air, silence apart from your heart thumping in your chest… Running on packed snow on roads is a bit annoying, and possibly the only context in which I’d say watch out for injury, since a swift slip as you push off at an angle can result in a groin pull, for example, which your body really wouldn’t be expecting.
So there you go. See if you can build a wider variety of surfaces into your running routes, and strike a blow against monotony.
Happy running!