Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Saturday, August 31, 2002 Forest versus roadsIs running in the forest significantly different that running on the roads or trails?The answer is, "I'm not sure," and "it depends." Running in the forest is clearly different. Christer Johansson compared video of orienteers running in the forest and running on the roads. In the terrain: the stride is shorter and slower (fewer strides per minute), the foot is on the ground longer, the arms swing less symetrically, the knees lift higher, the hip bends more and the upper body leans forward. He wrote, "running in the forest takes more strength, you lift your knees higher and get more power from the larger muscle groups like the thighs." Compared to road runners, orienteers have weaker calf muscles. When I do a lot of training in the forest, I notice that my running style changes. I'm not sure exactly how it changes, but it feels different. I also notice that I become more flexible. When I have been doing a lot of road/trail running and little or no forest running, I don't feel comfortable running in the forest. I get tired quickly. I don't have the confidence to really run hard. But, is the differnce significant? I suppose it is significant in certain types of terrain and much less significant in others. Last weekend I ran at Lake George, Colorado. The terrain is very open, not very rocky and relatively hard. It feels a lot like running on a road or trail. On the other hand, I ran at Harriman in July. The terrain is rocky, there is a fair amount of low vegetation and the ground can be soft/marshy. I think the differences are signficant in most, but not all, terrains we orienteer in. I try to take that into account when I plan my training. Once the woods are runnable around here (October through April), I try to do a bunch of training in the woods. During the summer, when I can't get in the local woods, I try to run some hills. Hills are probably a good way to simulate forest running (Johansson's comparison of forest and roads looks a lot like a comparison of hills and roads). posted by Michael | 5:10 PM 
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