I am looking for some help I am planning to run a marathon next year hopefully late July early or very early August and was wondering if anybody could point me in the right direction. I live in Ireland and ideally I want to run somewhere in the UK but I can also travel somewhere in Europe as long as flights permit. Anyway if anybody knows of anything I would really appreciate it
can i just make a point here myself . I train occasionally on tradmills and have nothing against them, however people are nit picking world bests that were run after training on a treadmill. If that is a valid reason for running on one surface over another then what about all the world bests that were achieved by people who trained outdoors exclusively. I coul start a list but I think you get the general idea
ok lets try and equate this people its very simple
indoor football vs outdoor football indoor football will get you fit but do you think the england team will train indoors the majority of the time. I don't think so the muscles used will be different from those needed on a larger pitch same as outdoor running perhaps
tour de france vs exercise bike same idea again does not allow for hills air resistance and even small recoveries on down downhills so is totally alien to outside cycling. will get you fit but not ideal for lance armstrong types
and as for the whole relativity of the belt of a treadmill thing. Stand still when the belt is moving and see how you move compared to standing still on a moving plane!!!!!!!.
I'm not saying that all people will suffer from achilles injuries who run on a treadmill either. but if you are a novice to indoor running and run at an incline for a set time it is surely going to mess up your leg without the proper conditioning. I was talking from personal experience, the number of people I have seen with achilles injuries from treadmills is quite large.
i have to disagree a little with lawries theory of relativity!!!!. I can agree with most of his point but when a runners foot lands on a moving belt it momentarily (depending on the time the foot is in contact with the sufrace) gets pulled back by the moving belt thus reducing the work needed to be done by the hamsrings so really your legs are going less work then if they were running on a normal non moving surface. Another thing I would like to advise against is running on a gradient on atreadmill not good for the achilles at all. I am not anti tradmill but try and avoid them if possible although friday was so cold and dark i let the softie in me talk me into staying indoors.
I started running on tradmills to get fit but if you want to race and improve you have got to hit the grass/road.
I wear a heart monitor and when on a treadmill my heartrate increases lineraly with time but running on a road it is very erratic depending on the terrain etc. i don't know of any races run on a tradmill so that is why i try not to train on them.
Also running on a tradmill can be quite deceiving because u you only do half the work really as the belt pulls your leg back so there is very little work done by your hamstring.
They are better than doing nothing though so try and run outdoors whenever you can and leave the treadmill for the snow or truely lazy days
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