Mixing It Up

Now I am officially in training for my first ultra marathon, the majority of my running (at least 80%) is off-road so that I train on the surfaces that I will come across on race days.  My running is a mixture of canal towpath, fire roads, grass and woodland trails.  It's great having such a diverse range of surfaces to run on and I try and mix it up as much as possible on every run; certainly on my longer ones at the weekend if nothing else.  Running on different surfaces encourages the use of different muscle groups, grass being especially good as it's kind to joints but also technically difficult to run on as a lot of the energy you generate is absorbed by the grass and therefore you have to work twice as hard as you would on a faster surface, such as tarmac.  In addition, most of the trails I run on are by no means flat and the undulating surface encourages the development of strong ligaments and helps to strengthen core muscles.  All in all it's a win-win situation.

Up until just before Christmas, I had been using my road shoes for my off-road runs but these were proving very unsatisfactory.  Although Wiltshire seems to have missed the worst of the flooding, the fields are still very water logged and some of my regular tracks are used by dog walkers.  This means that quite of few of them have turned into what can only be described as a quagmire with ankle deep, squelchy oozy mud as the surface I am having to run on.  Although when I say 'run', some of them are so badly churned up that it's pretty much all I can do to traverse them at barely more than crawling pace.  However, where I can I do run them and there is something very satisfying about running through huge squelchy puddles, mud being thrown up in all directions.  Having taken several tumbles due to losing my footing on the slippery going, before Christmas I treated myself to a pair of trail shoes in the hopes they would provide more grip.  I received my lovely trainers on 21st December and here they are in all their shiny glory having just been taken out of their box:

 
I'm very pleased with them, they are super light, very comfortable and provide substantially more grip than my road shoes.  However, having completed 120 miles in them, this is what they look like now:

I also need to replace my road shoes very soon as they have done well over 800 miles and are now starting to show their age.  I must say they are still very comfortable so I will probably stick with the same make / model.

I have also treated myself to two new pairs of running tights and some proper running socks all for less than £10!  Oh how I do love a bargain.