Road running v off-road (particularly races)

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Bru-Bru Jan 2013 1:38pm, 10 Jan 2013 1,987 posts	0 Bru-Bru I like both, but for different reasons. The appeal of road races (bigger the better) is the sense of occasion and shared purpose with a variety of people (quick runners, slow runners, people dressed as rhinos-the lot) It's sociable in a strange way. Trail races, on the other hand, are more for those who love running, and love the outdoors. The fun ofthe navigation and being in beautiful scenery make it less stressful and more enjoyable as far as the running itself goes. XC has some elements of both. The only thing I don't get is all the blazing hay bales/mud tunnels/scramble net stuff. I can see why people enjoy it, in the same way as people enjoyed It's a Knockout, but all the other stuff comes a poor second to running, for me. A mix is the best way to keep interested and avoid injuries!
paul the builder Jan 2013 1:51pm, 10 Jan 2013 3,175 posts	0 paul the builder fozzy - you've moved the question on a bit, from road versus off-road, to single target races versus several. And FR too - "To dedicate six months or more to a single event for a PB is way beyond my idea of fun". We're not all the same. For me - training hard for months through last summer, all the time looking at one target marathon in October (and a HM in the build-up) is exactly what I enjoy doing. And the feeling of achieving your goal, after months of dedicated effort, is incredibly special - and the longer and harder the road to get there, the more special it feels (to me).
rf_fozzy Jan 2013 1:58pm, 10 Jan 2013 4,189 posts	0 rf_fozzy Bit more of an answer to Baz's question: Something else I like about racing off-road is that you often don't need to commit weeks or months (or years!) in advance. Most (but, certainly not all) the races I do, you can rock up and EOD for no extra cost, in fact that's often that the race is EOD only. This means that you don't need to necessarily commit to race A and if you're not ready/life gets in the way, you knock it on the head and do race B instead. Most big road races fill up way in advance of when I know I'm going to be able to do it or not. Then if I don't do it, it's a just a waste of cash! Final thing I can thinkof at the moment. And I am not saying that this is in anyway true beyond the limits of my Cranium. I like the extra addition of having to be a skilled runner offroad. The different terrains you run on, all require different technical abilities - hence some people are better uphill, some downhill, some through bogs, some of rocky terrain etc. To negotiate all those as fast as you can requires some level of skill (to me) and I like that. I often feel that running on the roads, it's just about who can run the fastest for the longest period of time and there is little skill beyond training and genetics, both of which are also important offroad. It's a bit like orienteering (which I also do) - the fastest runner is always the winner - because you also need to be able to read a map, assimilate the information, plan a route, navigate to a control and overcome the terrain that you encounter. I fairly frequently beat runners who are much quicker than I am (both road and fell), much like I can beat quicker runners on the road on a fell race sometimes. By the same token there are people who I am quicker than on the roads, that beat me on the fells and definitely slower runners who beat me fairly regularly at orienteering. I therefore strive to improve my skills and my running ability, which is a nice. As I said (before I get shouted at/shunned for voiceing and opinion!), this may not be true for other people, but it is for me.
rf_fozzy Jan 2013 2:03pm, 10 Jan 2013 4,190 posts	0 rf_fozzy PtB - The two are entwined though. Road runners (in my experience) tend to race less often than offroad runners. There could be several reasons for this. What happens if you spend 6 months training for a marathon and it all goes horribly wrong (as it did for me in London very badly - not saying that this is necessarily representative of course), or conditions aren't suitable or you get injured 2 days before the race etc. You don't get your PB and instead miss it by a long way. Then you feel like crap and have to start from zero all over again for the next race 6 months away. Sorry, I can't see the fun in that.
Hourglass Jan 2013 2:07pm, 10 Jan 2013 7,982 posts	0 Hourglass I don't think anyone is disputing that every runner is different...it just seems that every time someone voices their opinion, which may or may not be different to everyone else's - you have to justify why your opinion is right. We're all lovely, fabulous and different...hence the choice of races, kit, forums, etc ...sending everyone January Joy and tea and
The_Saint Jan 2013 2:07pm, 10 Jan 2013 5,497 posts	0 The_Saint There is also the fallacy of "the more people at a race, the better it is", a saying about the eating habits of flies applies here. Even the most average fell race takes you places that only a few exceptional road races do but when people are head down, busting a gut around some flat industrial estate 10K to shave 0.7 seconds off their PB nobody else cares about then why would the surroundings matter?
HermanBloom Jan 2013 2:08pm, 10 Jan 2013 2,716 posts	0 HermanBloom It is one thing I am concerned about for my marathon in 2014, that you sort of have one shot at it for the year. If I have a bad 10k race, I can do another one within a month to rectify it. This year I aim to do three Half's, to get under two hours, so multiple attempts there to learn how a race at that distance operates, pacing, food/drink methods etc. I'd be gutted if I invested so much time in training only to find conditions on the day were rubbish, or I got injured at some point in the training so could't race properly, or stuff like that. But I can totally see where ptb is coming from, in that if it does go right and you hit your target, the months that have gone into it must lead to a great sense of satisfaction.
rf_fozzy Jan 2013 2:11pm, 10 Jan 2013 4,191 posts	0 rf_fozzy Not at all, Hourglass, I was asked by Baz why I like running offroad, so I answered him - other than that, I think that most of my replies have been all about elliciting further information to clarify my understanding. Just saying "everyone is different" is too simplistic!
SPR Jan 2013 2:21pm, 10 Jan 2013 17,836 posts	0 SPR "To dedicate six months or more to a single event for a PB is way beyond my idea of fun" TBF FR isn't your year dedicated to Lakeland 100? So you're prepared to dedicate the time just for different reasons.
Frobester Jan 2013 2:23pm, 10 Jan 2013 21,542 posts	0 Frobester What's behind this thread is "why and how we're different". Laudable debate, really.