Old School Fitness – Trail Running

There are two types of people in this world, runners and people who despise running.

Runners will train with stress fractures and broken limbs, and they’ll be the ones out there in the middle of hurricanes and blizzards.

Non-runners generally only run when:

1. Someone or something is chasing them
2. They’re participating in some type of fundraiser or charity event
3. Someone else coerces them into running because “it’s fun to run together”

Straight jogging is not my strong suit. Although I spent a huge part of my life playing soccer, I would not categorize myself as a skilled runner. If I want to go out and run more than a few miles, I really need to pay attention to my overall running mechanics. Yes, running is a skill.

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly developed my aerobic base without even realizing it. Many times, when the weather is nice here in New England, I head out to the local trails near my gym and go for a run in the woods. My typical runs last anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, depending on my schedule or how fast I’m running.

My goal with these runs was actually not to develop my aerobic base, but rather to get out of the gym for a bit, clear my head and have a few minutes to myself. Yes, basically free therapy. (Related: The psychological price of entrepreneurship.)

When running in the woods, I noticed a few things:

1. I always have to pay attention due to the varied terrain in the woods.
2. The changing landscape provides a change of scenery.
3. Changes in elevation challenge my cadence.
4. I have to pay attention to two separate things. First, the rocks and roots directly in front of me, and second, the line I’m going to choose ahead.

By having to pay more attention to everything going on around me, I’m able to “distract ” myself so I don’t think so much about running. Instead of feeling bored, like I often did when running on the road, running in the woods became an obstacle course for me.

Running in the woods made running fun again.

Over the last few months, I slowly increased my mileage and I started to feel fantastic. Once I’m comfortable in the woods, I create challenges for myself.

I’ll run a loop 2-3 times and record my time. A week later, I’ll try to beat it. Instead of running 2-3 times, my goal might be something like running the same loop 4 to 5 times. I try to improve something weekly and that’s pretty much it.

I purposely keep it very simple. I don’t check my heart rate variability every morning. I don’t use a heart rate monitor when I’m running in the woods. I don’t rely on a grip dynamometer to check my daily readiness. (Although dynamometers are really cool!) I just started going out to the woods and busting my butt.

It’s actually been quite refreshing.

I could have chose to write about energy system development, residuals of training modalities or lots of other fancy stuff, but today this is what you get. There’s something to be said about keeping it simple.

Keep it simple. Go outside. Enjoy nature. Have fun.

Trail running has provided me with a breath of fresh air and if you’re a non-runner like me, I hope you give this a go. It turns out trail running is not only fantastic for your body, but also for your mind!