10 ways to run that aren’t plain old road running
One of my neighbours runs regularly. Twice or three times a week - I’m not sure of the exact number because unfortunately I can’t spend the whole of every day of my life twitching the curtain - she limbers up outside her front door, flicks back her long blonde hair so she can plug her iPod into her brain and runs up the road past my house, round the block twice, or maybe three times, and then back home. Talk about limited horizons. (Talk about combining blogging and stalking). I’d buttonhole her and tell her about all the good off-road running routes available in this part of London but my Hungarian isn’t up to scratch. Please don’t think I’m being critical - I’m not. Any running is always better than no running. I’m just lamenting the missed potential of what isn’t such a bad area for running.
Running routes that you know and trust is comforting. And just by going out and turning your legs over and moving through the world on your feet, well you’re doing a great thing. But in the interests of injecting some variety into your lives - not my neighbour’s maybe, as she most likely doesn’t read this blog - here is a Runnersdaily swift guide to 10 events that either involve running or require a different approach to running than trotting along unchallenging suburban pavements. Maybe it’ll open your eyes to broader horizons…
- Triathlon - swim, bike, run: the obvious one, as it’s one of the world’s fastest-growing sports and entails runs as short as 5k and as long as you want (double-marathon or more…). Very addictive, very satisfying.
- Duathlon - run, bike run: arguably tougher than triathlon since you have to run twice, and running is tougher than swimming. Ideal if you’re allergic to chlorine or swim like a Mafia victim. Less faff than triathlon, but you are still dependent on a machine for a significant part of the race.
- Aquathlon - swim, run: a relatively recent and welcome addition to the world of standardised multisport. Now then, this is more like it - all human-powered, no potential mechanical problems on the bike, nice and pure.
- Orienteering - by necessity off-road, since it entails navigating a series of checkpoints in the quickest time possible. If you desperately require your running to switch your brain on and you have decent navigational skills, then orienteering might well be for you.
- Coast-to-coast - originally a Kiwi event, there are now coast-to-coasts in the UK. (Not easy to do in, say, the US, where the coasts are 3,000 miles apart…) A pioneering hard-edged point to point race with a random mix of kayak, MTB, run, road bike, run, bouldering, kayak, run…
- Ironman (surf life-saving) - swim, board paddling, ski paddling, run. An Aussie event, now practised in Cornwall too. Predates Ironman triathlon by over a decade - the name is the only real similarity - and many great Aussie triathletes have started out in Ironman.
- Fell running - a great British tradition. Short, brutal, pointy courses. You’d think that the near-vertical climbs would be the hard thing about fell running, and you’d be right, but the near-vertical descents are, I’m sorry to say, worse. Very addictive. Read my review of ‘Feet In The Clouds’ in this blog archive.
- Decathlon if you’re a lad, heptathlon if you’re a lass - track and field multisporters that have plenty of hard running in them. Good if you have more than your fair share of fast-twitch fibres.
- Tower running - as recently pointed to in our links on the main site. It’s been around a while. Racing up the stairs to the top of a very high building. The perfect event for masochistic agoraphobics.
- Mountain running - sometimes the races are uphill only, rather than a mix of up and downhill, which makes for a peculiarly intense challenge. If you love to be outdoors in majestic settings but find walking too easy, this is for you.
Happy running!