10. Sage advice

Running tip #10

While I was running on my home trails yesterday, I wasn’t feeling the usual benefit of “soft surface” under my feet. In fact, the ground felt more like a road than a trail, despite the Carolina pine needle cushioning.  I thought maybe it was an old pair of shoes making my foot-pads sore, but then I realized, “Duh!” the earth is frozen.  It’s been proven that running on the road produces a gazillion more pounds of pressure on your body than dirt or grass or a rubber track.  Competitor.com explains:

“Throw a golf ball at your driveway.  What happens?  That’s right; it takes off into the atmosphere.  Now throw that same golf ball at your front lawn with the same velocity.  Where did it go?  Yep, it’s still there on the ground, where the grass has absorbed most of the impact.  Now imagine that golf ball is your body and the above process gets repeated a couple thousand times over the course of a 5-mile run.” (June, 2014)

When your beloved trails harden (their hearts) to you in wintertime, to avoid injury I advise considering Benjamin Franklin’s enduring dictum : An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Make a preemptive strike on that impact-induced injury by choosing a swim over a run in the middle of the week.  Most indoor pools have a single-pass swim fee and you can easily check the open swim hours on the internet.  Your feet will thank you, even if your greening hair won’t.