Trail and Mountain Running E-Book

Sarah Rowell

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Trail and Mountain Running is a practical guide for runners designed to help those who are already running off road and wanting to improve their performance, to try longer or rougher terrain with confidence, and those who simply want to venture from roads onto trails and mountain paths for the first time. Divided into three sections, the book covers: Training fundamentals - giving you all the knowledge you need to run off road in terms of training programme, looking after your body, kit and equipment and staying safe in the environment. Racing - providing more detailed advice about what to do pre, during and post race to maximize performance. Optimizing performance - more advanced information on training and racing, and supplementary areas such as altitude training, which can help performance. Throughout the book advice is given relative to four 'typical races' of different lengths and terrain; all of which is interspersed by real life anecdotes and stories from the authors. A practical guide that provides information tailored to all levels of runners who want to both enjoy running off road as well as get better at it. Superbly illustrated with 70 colour photographs. Both Sarah Rowell and Wendy Dodds are highly experienced and successful athletes.

Leseprobe

Trail and Mountain Running

Sarah Rowell and Wendy Dodds

Copyright

First published in 2013 by The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2013

© Sarah Rowell and Wendy Dodds 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 564 5

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the following for giving their time and expertise to help shape the contents of the book:

Bob Smith, Mark Townsend, Barbara Lonsdale and Hilary Bloor for their insightful and challenging questions and suggestions throughout; Dr Steve Ingham for advice on the training sections; Ian Holmes, Jez Bragg and Jonathan Wyatt for sharing their training ideas and plans; Ali Rose and the staff at the Coach House Physiotherapy Clinic for their assistance and expertise with the exercises included in the book (and for helping keep Sarah Rowell running); those who have let us use their photos, in particular Triss Kenny, Dave Woodhead, Andy Holden, Ian Charters (www.justusuk.com) and Dan Vernon; your work really brings our words to life.

We would also like to thank all those other friends who have given us advice and shared many days on the hills over the years, and who have provided us with the inspiration for this book; and, last but not least, our long-suffering partners Andy and Ralph for their help, support and patience.

Picture on page 2 courtesy Berghaus.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

About the Authors

Foreword by Boff Whalley

Introduction

Part I: Training Fundamentals

1. Understanding Training

2. Taking your Training Off-Road

3. Supplementary Training

4. Enjoying the Environment and Staying Safe

5. Kit, Shoes and Equipment

6. Looking after your Body

Part II: Racing

7. Pre-Race Preparation

8. Racing

9. Post-Race

Part III: Optimizing Performance

10. Cross-Training

11. The Final One Per Cent

12. Racing Well All Season

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sarah Rowell

Sarah started running during the early 1980s marathon boom, winning gold at the World Student Games in 1983 (where Wendy was one of the medical staff), representing Great Britain in the 1984 Olympic marathon and setting her personal best of 2.28.06 when finishing second in the 1985 London marathon.

Injury issues meant that her focus switched to off-road surfaces. In 1986 she won the Seven Sisters marathon outright, becoming the first woman to achieve such a feat. In 1992 she finished second in the World Mountain Running Championships, and in 1996 and 1997 she won the British and English fell-running championships. More recently she has focused on longer events and running for pleasure.

In normal life Sarah works as an advisor within high-performance sport and is the team leader for UK Athletics mountain running. She also advises a number of athletes, from recreational to international.

Wendy Dodds

Wendy diversified from being a junior international swimmer and an orienteer as a student, taking up mountain running in 1972 when she did her first Mountain Marathon. Over the years she has run regularly over the fells with numerous age-group English and British championship wins, though favouring long races. She won her age group category in the first five years of the Runfurther Trail race series and in 2006 was third FV50 in the UTMB.

In parallel with her running she has been a Sports Physician for over thirty years working with many sports, being a Team GB doctor at four Olympic Games and a volunteer doctor at London 2012. In retirement she has been able to be a full-time athlete(!), allowing her to reproduce times from twenty years ago when training was limited by professional commitments.

Sarah and Wendy first teamed up in 1991 to break the women’s record at the Haworth Hobble, previously held by two Olympic marathon runners (Angie Payne and Veronique Marot), with their time still being very respectable twenty years later. More recently they have formed a consistently successful Mountain Marathon partnership.

FOREWORD

My introduction to off-road running – or more specifically, fell running – came when I stood in a muddy field in Yorkshire one wet evening many years ago watching 100 or so runners revelling in the panting, sweating, rough ‘n’ tumble joys of testing themselves to their limits whilst getting soaked, battered and cacked-up… and still managing to smile and laugh at the finish.

Since then I’ve been so obsessively steeped in this huge world of trail and mountain running – a memory bank full of fells, mountains, forests and fields – that I’ve practically forgotten how it felt to start; to leave the pavement behind and discover all those paths, trails and open moorlands. Which of course is where a book like this would have come in handy.

Within a few months of publishing a book about wild (off-road in all its variations) running, the most common enquiry I had from road runners were variations on the theme of ‘Where do you start?’ We’re so used to the city centre marathon as a symbol of modern running that we sometimes can’t see the woods for the trees, don’t understand where to look, what to wear, how to train and prepare … in short, we need some friendly advice from someone who’s spent the better part of a lifetime learning the dos, don’ts, how-tos and how-not-tos of the sport.

In this there can’t be many better, more reassuring voices at your side than Sarah and Wendy, two women whose knowledge of fell and mountain races has been gathered over the years by running, racing and training over every corner of this windswept or sun-beaten, craggy or grassy, storm-soaked or bracken-dry country of ours.

On the assumption you don’t live next door to Sarah and Wendy, do yourself a favour and get yourself a copy of this book. Use it as a guide to discovering – safely – a new and exciting world full of possibilities. Then go and have fun!

Boff Whalley

Author of Run Wild

INTRODUCTION

Who is Trail and Mountain Running for?

Running, it could be argued, is the most natural form of exercise. For all its simplicity, there are many books, magazines and websites giving advice on how to run faster, train better, avoid injuries and how to maximally support a running habit. Why then another book, especially one focused on trail and mountain running, which are often described as pure and that you ‘just do’? If it is that simple, why devote a whole book to them? This is a good question and for some runners a book such as this is not needed, as they already have the confidence, experience and skills to run on trails and mountains happily, safely and successfully. Those runners are, however, in the minority. There are many more who want to progress with their running, whether it is racing for the first time; venturing from roads on to trails and mountain paths; moving from running 10km to longer distances and even ultras; or wanting to feel confident about being able to run safely in more isolated environments. It could also be that they are simply open to finding out more, in order to improve their performance.

It is for these runners that this book has been written, in which we share the knowledge and insights we have gained through a combined seventy years’ (plus) worth of experiences, running and coaching; and over which professional careers are layered, ensuring that the practical advice provided on the following pages is grounded in current medical and scientific best practice.

The Enjoyment of Running

For both of us, running has been interwoven into our lives. It has and continues, on a near daily basis, to provide us with the enjoyment to be gained from putting one foot in front of the other, with a feeling of body and mind in harmony. On a good day, you have one of those runs where all seems effortless and you seem to float along at speed. It provides an environment where your brain seems to function optimally, your mind coming alive, buzzing and on fire, generating ideas, solving problems and composing the most eloquent of text. Conversely, there are the days when your run perhaps is a bit of a plod, feeling more of a struggle, but one after which you still feel better on your return home, maybe cheered by the sight of deer or other local wildlife. Yes, there are the times when injuries or poor form mean you question the physical and emotional time and effort invested, but, if you are training smartly, these occasions are far outweighed by the good times.

Running, and in particular racing, has also provided both of us with much pride and satisfaction as goals set out at the beginning of the year are focused on, trained for and achieved. Not always: for both of us there have been targets that have ‘got away’ and have had to be added to the ‘reflect, learn and do differently next time’ box. While the former aspects (goals accomplished, titles, positions or times achieved and races won) are the ones most of us strive for, it is the latter from which we often learn more.

The enjoyment of running off the beaten track. ANDY HOLDEN

Running and racing are much more than focused competition and aiming to win – after all, it is only a very few in each race who get called up on to the podium. This does not stop the fun of having goals and a focus for running, whether it is beating the person who always beats you, finishing in the top half of the field, being faster than the last time or a totally non-race related target – running further, somewhere new, staying fit and healthy with age. This book is a running-focused and carefully planned dissemination of our experience and knowledge, designed to help you increase your enjoyment of running off the beaten track, whatever your goals.

Trail and Mountain Running

What do we mean by trail and mountain running? It is a pretty broad description. What types of surfaces, events and distances does it cover? And, perhaps just as importantly, what, in the context of this book, does it not cover? Historically, long-distance running, and certainly racing, mainly took place on roads and paved surfaces. There have always been some exceptions to this, such as the Orion 15, which was first held in 1954, but until relatively recently, British distance running races were predominantly on hard surfaces. Fell running (often called hill running in Scotland) is the exception to this, with races, which date back to 1870s, being held over quite extreme terrain. Likewise, in Continental Europe and America there is a long history of mountain (Europe) and trail (USA) races being held. More recent times have seen a surge of interest in running and racing on non-paved surfaces, both in the UK and abroad. Increased road traffic, increased costs, more restrictive policing requirements, better maps, wanting a different challenge, enjoying a more pleasant environment: these are just some of the reasons linked to this shift.

Pendle: a traditional fell race. ANDY HOLDEN

Trail and Mountain Running provides advice relevant to trail, mountain and fell races. While it is possible to roughly differentiate between the three types of race, in practice it is not so simple as many races do not neatly fit into one box or the other. As this book is all about running off-road, an activity which in itself is more unstructured compared with the rigid demands of the road, so much the better. For the purposes, therefore, only of helping readers apply the information and concepts in this book to their own training and racing, the following definitions will be used:

A fell race is over rough off-path ground, does not normally have a marked or set route (allowing for route choice), visits one or more hill summits or checkpoints, requires runners to be self-sufficient, and meets the race categorization criteria of the Fell Runners Association, kit often having to be carried.

A trail race is mainly on trails/paths/tracks, the route may or may not be marked but does not normally allow route choice, there are usually aid stations at checkpoints, may or may not be hilly, kit may or may not be required to be carried.

A mountain race is on well-marked single tracks or wider trails/four-wheel-drive tracks; if in Europe is often uphill only or has more uphill than down, has a considerable amount of ascent, has aid stations if a longer race, has a marked route with no route choice.

All three types of event include races lasting anything from ten minutes to over five hours.

As can be seen, the potential for overlap between the types of event is considerable. For example, a 10km trail race might be accurate in distance, well marked, have a fast, flat surface and great for decent times (that is, more akin to a road race); on the other hand, it may be on rough ground, approximately measured, on a muddy, twisty and hilly course (verging on being a fell race).

There are other forms of running taking place off-road: in particular, pure cross-country and orienteering events. Trail and mountain running often require similar skills and expertise to these, but neither cross-country, orienteering nor other challenge or multi-skill events such as adventure racing will be covered by this book.

Grossglockner mountain race, Austria. TRISS KENNY

How the Book is Structured

Trail and Mountain Running is not designed as a complete guide to running and training as there are already plenty of books that do that well. We make the assumption that readers have some knowledge of training and already do some running; our book is not designed for those who want to start running. Rather, its focus is on those runners who want to progress, whether that be running and racing off-road for the first time, getting faster or better at trail or mountain running, tackling a new, longer distance or challenge, or just running safely in a harsher environment.

The book is divided into three parts. The first, Training Fundamentals, contains five chapters, which will provide you with all you need to know to be able to run and train for trail and mountain running, covering how to:

Plan an appropriate training programme.Optimize your training programme for off-road running.Supplement your running training to maximize performance and minimize injury risk.Be able to enjoy and be safe in non-urban environments.Look after your body most effectively; ensure you have appropriate shoes and kit for the conditions.

The second part, Racing, is about competing and covers the key areas runners need to be aware of if they want to race successfully on trails and mountains. There are three chapters in this section, covering in order:

Pre-race preparation – including kit, tapering and mental preparation.Racing – including what to carry, race tactics, fuelling and pacing.Post-race – including refuelling, warming down and recovery techniques.

The final part is Optimizing Performance. If the first part covers the foundations of successful running on trails and mountains, then this final part is about making sure that all options are covered to maximize performance for the specific event or environment you want to run in. The three chapters here cover:

How to make use of cross-training methods whether you are injured or not.The final 1 per cent – the little things to think about when all else has been covered.How to race well all season.

As noted previously, there are myriad different types of mountain, trail and fell running races and events, which means different training and preparation requirements are needed for each. Throughout the book, especially in the Taking your Training Off-Road chapter and the Racing section, four stereotypical races will be used as examples:

A 45min fell race – a classic British fell race, going to the top of a hill and back down where there is off-path running; the race route is unmarked; runners can choose their own route.A 70- to 90min mountain race – a typical European-style race, with lots of uphill running; on decent trails and paths; the race route is marked.A 3- to 4hr trail race – on a mixture of undulating trails, grasslands, paths, bits of roads, the race checkpoints must be visited, allowing some route choice but it may be a marked or flagged route, some support en route provided.A 10hr-plus ultra race – on a mix of undulating trails/grasslands, paths, roads, the race route must be followed but it is not marked, some support en route provided at the checkpoints.

The leaders in the 2012 Great Trail Race. DAN VERNON/NOVA INTERNATIONAL

Using these four races as examples will allow us to show how training and race preparation should best be altered depending on the length and nature of the event you are preparing for.

There are few pages at the end of the book in which you can jot down key points, notes and other things of use to you.

PART I

TRAINING FUNDAMENTALS

The first of three sections, Training Fundamentals gives you all the knowledge you need to run off-road in terms of training programmes, looking after your body, kit and equipment and staying safe in the environment

ANDY HOLDEN

CHAPTER 1

UNDERSTANDING TRAINING

Putting together a training programme for running (or any sport) is potentially very simple – you just get out and run. While this may work for some, it is, to use a cooking analogy, a bit like throwing a set of ingredients together to make a cake with no consideration as to the ingredients, the quantities, in what order, how to mix, how long to cook for, at what temperature and how long to cool before eating – if you are lucky it may work out really well, but there is a significant risk of ending up with a sticky mess.

To maximize improvement, there are various things that need to be taken into consideration. Staying roughly with the cake-baking analogy: just as there are thousands of different (sometimes subtly, sometimes significantly different) recipes for cakes, all of which result in a tasty outcome, so there is a similar range of training programmes. Training is not an exact science, with only one right way; rather, it is a case of blending the key parts together in a way that suits the individual runner and their aims – the key is making sure that all the critical variables are in sync.

The variables are as follows:

The race or target: what is the event being trained for and what is the result wanted?The basic training principles: what we know about how the body responds to training.The individual runner: their physiology, anatomy and psychology will all influence what the best training programme is.The different types of training.The runner’s current lifestyle.The chronological and training age of the runner.

Influencing how these come together is the specific training philosophy adopted. All these variables must be carefully blended in the right way at the right time to create the overall successful training programme or recipe. As with a cake, get any part of the process wrong and the outcome will not be the best.

As an example, it is not uncommon to see running Internet forums hosting whole pages of debate about how long or how fast long runs should be – here the only correct answer is, ‘it depends’. The question is like asking how many bananas need to go into a banana cake and should they be mashed or sliced: impossible to answer without the context of the overall recipe (or training plan).

On the one hand, designing a training programme can appear to be quite complex and hence it appears easier for many just to follow a ready-made recipe. On the other hand, if you have a basic understanding of the key principles and the way various ingredients work in different circumstances, then you have the tools either to tailor existing training programmes (like those in this book) to fit your personal circumstances, or to make your own programme from scratch. Both of these latter approaches will result in a personalized fit-for-purpose training pro gramme, one that you will enjoy more and find easier to follow and should bring about a better end performance.

Before considering the practical nuts and bolts of training programmes for our four featured events, first we need to have a quick reminder of the basic principles of training. This is followed by a look at why we train. What are the main training principles that help us go faster and the types of training that will be most effective? Once we have all these, we are in a position to marry all the pieces together to produce effective training programmes. These programmes are covered in Chapter 2, where there is a section simply called ‘Ideas to Try’ with some recommendations for training sessions we have used successfully.

Off-road runners come in all shapes and sizes. DAVE WOODHEAD

Principles of Training

Individuality Everyone is different: everyone starts with a different genetic make-up, has a different lifestyle, a different ability to adapt and respond to training; training programmes must therefore be tailored to best suit individual runners.

Specificity What you train is what you improve: that is to say, the adaptations our bodies make to training are highly specific to the load placed on them (this is not to denigrate cross-training, which is covered in Chapter 10).

Overload To improve something you have to progressively provide a greater stress than the body is used to. Once the body becomes used to a specific load, training needs to be changed to provide a greater stress or overload in order to continue to improve.

Reversibility Use it or lose it, all training adaptations are reversible, and while it is not true that if you do not run for a week you lose half your fitness, if you stop any form of training for any length of time your training gains will reverse.

Hard/Easy Whether via days, weeks or larger training cycles, optimal training gains are made by mixing hard training with rest/recovery phases. There is much truth in the concept that it is during the easy/recovery training phases that the fitness adaptations from the hard training are gained.

Why Train?

Some runners train simply because they enjoy the experience of running, the satisfaction of the post-run physical ache and tiredness, or the emotional runner’s high. Most, however, also train to get better or, once you reach a certain age, to slow down the natural decline in performance that comes with age.

How does training help make us go faster? What are the key adaptations that training aims to bring about to ensure that this occurs? If we know what we are aiming to positively change in terms of physiological function or anatomical structure, and we know what types of training best bring about this change, then we have a logical reasoning on which to design a training programme.

Physiological training adaptations can be broadly categorized into three interrelated areas:

Optimizing energy and power production.Running economy.Running effectiveness.

In addition, there is mental strength: the ability to focus on the task in hand, to struggle through the bad bits and to refocus when things go wrong. This whole area will be looked at in more detail in Chapter 11.

Energy Systems

Much of what is written about training programmes focuses on increasing the delivery of usable energy to the working muscles; in other words, developing the cardiovascular system. This is as critical to trail, mountain, and fell running as to other forms of endurance activity.

Your body’s potential energy comes mainly from three sources: fat, carbohydrate and ATP. Fat and carbohydrate are stored in the body as triglyceride and glycogen respectively and in longer events can be obtained from food or drink consumed. ATP, or adenosine triphosphate, is the carrier of energy that the body uses to release energy to the working muscle. Put another way, all energy from food is trapped by ATP before it is released when required. During exercise your body’s metabolic processes drive the resynthesis of ATP to continue to release energy. The body can also use protein as a source of energy; however, this only really occurs when the body is depleted in carbohydrate.

In simple terms, the body has four different options available to it to turn potential energy into usable energy and then generate power and movement. Of these options, three are most important in the context of this book.

The ATP-PCr System Used to support very quick, maximal bouts of movement lasting up to around 6–10 seconds, this system is independent of oxygen and occurs via the breakdown of molecules of stored ATP and PCr (phosphocreatine), allowing the muscle to generate force quickly. For endurance runners, this energy source will only really come into play in the final sprint for the finish line and is the least important for trail, mountain and fell runners.

The Glycolytic or Anaerobic System This resynthesizes ATP independently of oxygen (hence the term anaerobic, or ‘without oxygen’) and because it does not use oxygen, it can generate energy quickly as the body breaks down stored glycogen to resynthesize ATP. One of the by-products of this system is lactic acid, which can accumulate if the intensity is too high for too long and it is associated with excessive metabolic muscle fatigue.

The generation of lactic acid is not in itself a bad thing; rather, it is a natural part of how the body generates useable energy. In normal circumstances (namely, when there is enough oxygen around), there is a shuttle system in action, whereby lactic acid is created by the working muscles and then shuttled to either adjacent muscle fibres or to the liver to be reconverted back into a useable energy source. As the body works harder (that is, you run faster), the level of circulating lactic acid rises (because it is being generated at a faster rate than can be shuttled away and reconverted) until a point at which accumulation of metabolic by-products, in particular hydrogen ions, interferes with muscle con traction – or the feedback to the brain from a burning sensation in the muscles convinces you to ease up.

A person’s lactate threshold (lactate turn-point or anaerobic threshold are other terms commonly used) is the point (or speed) beyond which an increase in exercise intensity results in a rise in the circulating level of lactate and acidity, that if allowed to increase excessively leads to eventual fatigue.

Training for the glycolytic system focuses on positively influencing two things: first, increasing the body’s ability to tolerate a higher level of circulating lactate before inhibition occurs and, second, increasing the ability to generate and recycle lactate so that for any given speed the circulating lactate level is lower.

The Oxidative Glycolytic and Oxidative Lipolytic Systems Many texts consider the oxidative systems as one system; however, when considering the range of endurance events and the different training effects, that there are two different sources of energy involved, merits thinking about them separately. Put simply, both oxidative systems require oxygen to resynthesize ATP and enable movement. The oxidative glycolytic system releases the body’s more limited stores of energy in glycogen (stored carbohydrate) or circulating glucose for ATP and can do this quite effectively in terms of the amount of ATP generated per unit of oxygen used. The oxidative (lipolytic) system, on the other hand, generates ATP from the breakdown of lipids or fat. While your potential ‘fat’ energy pot is much greater, the energy released is more expensive per unit of oxygen than that for carbohydrate/glycogen (and hence tends to mean slower movement).

In reality, the body uses both these systems concurrently. The harder it is working (or faster it is moving), the greater the amount of energy coming from glycogen compared to lipid. However, the pot of available glycogen is limited and when this runs low, energy production and hence speed reduces as the body becomes much more reliant on breaking down fats to release energy to resynthesize the required ATP. (The most obvious effect of this is ‘hitting the wall’ when running a marathon.)

For endurance runners, training these systems is focused on increasing the capacity of the body to convert the fuel stores to energy (that is, to achieve a higher conversion rate), as well as increasing the body’s ability to use fats as an energy source. Typically, faster marathon and ultra runners use a higher percentage of fat compared to carbohydrate to generate energy for a given speed. This in turn prolongs the length of time they can maintain their speed before glycogen stores run out.

Table 1: Summary of Energy Systems

NameEnergy GenerationLasts forEvents when usedThe ATP-PCr systemStored ATP and PCr6–10secSprintsThe glycolytic or anaerobic sysGenerates ATP from stored glycogen without using oxygen.Up to 30minMain energy source for 45min fell race. Important energy source for a 90min mountain race.The oxidative glycolytic systemGenerates ATP from stored carbohydrate (glycogen) using oxygen.90–120minMain energy source for a 90min mountain race. Key energy source for 3hr trail race.The oxidative lipolytic systemGenerates ATP from stored fat using oxygen.Longer than 90minImportant energy source for a 3hr trail race. Main energy source for 10hr ultra race.

Running Economy

While the ability of the cardiovascular system to deliver usable energy to the muscles and of the muscles subsequently to contract is important, their relative importance in the overall scheme of running faster in endurance events is a moot point. It is well established that if you were to measure the effectiveness of the cardiovascular system using a measure known as the maximal oxygen uptake (the maximum amount of oxygen the body can take in via the lungs, transport via the heart and cardiovascular system and uptake at the muscle – often considered the best overall measure of cardiovascular fitness), in all the runners in a particular endurance race there will be a strong correlation between the faster the runner and the higher the maximal oxygen uptake. However, if you were to take the top 10 per cent of the race field or all the finalists in an Olympic Games 10,000m race, then the relationship between maximal oxygen update and performance becomes much more tenuous.

Why? Because movement efficiency or running economy is just as important, if not more so, in influencing the performance outcome. If maximal oxygen uptake is the maximum amount of oxygen that the body can transport to the working muscles, then running economy is a measure of the amount of oxygen required to run at any given speed; that is, the higher the running economy, the higher the speed you can run while using the same amount of oxygen, as opposed to the absolute highest speed. Typically (but not always), the best endurance athletes – certainly those running distances of 10km and over – are also the most economical, but not necessarily those with the highest maximal oxygen uptake.

The great thing for runners is that running economy has a strong positive association with training in that by practising running the body becomes more economical at running. Indeed, most runners probably have just as great a potential to improve their running economy as they do their pure cardiovascular fitness.

Running Effectiveness

What do we mean by this? What exactly is running effectiveness? If optimizing energy and power production is about ensuring that there is maximum energy available (think of the engine and fuel delivery system in a car), then running effectiveness refers to the ability of the lower limbs (in the case of running) to use this available energy as efficiently as possible. For runners, this in particular relates to the optimal functioning of the key pivots at the foot/ankle joint and the pelvis.

Running effectiveness is critical for all runners, but even more so for trail, mountain and fell running ones where the ability to maintain speed over rough and uneven ground, ideally without an increase in effort, can make the difference between a good and a great performance. We can probably all think of great road runners who, once running off-road and on anything other than smooth trails, suddenly start to struggle and their previous smooth stride becomes one of apparent uncoordinated stuttering. Looking a little deeper, running effectiveness has three main components:

Local Muscle Strength and Fatigability Muscles are made up of numerous muscle fibres. Muscle movement occurs via the coupling and uncoupling of small cross bridges (think little hooks) between the fibres. Fatigue within the coupling process, particularly in ultra events, will mean that even in the presence of enough useable energy the muscle contraction (the end result of all the individual fibres moving across each other) will not be as strong or as fast.