Trail Running for Beginners
Lessons learned from my first year of running off road
After many years of running on roads, tracks, and treadmills, I decided to take up trail running this past year. It’s been an excellent adventure running on dirt and gravel paths through rolling hills, along the water, and across rocky, rugged terrain.
There have been days when trail running was everything I imagined it to be — well-paced runs on trodden paths, sun shining through the trees, chirping birds.
But it hasn’t always been fast, easy, or even safe. There have been a few hard-learned lessons, including runs that took much longer than expected and getting lost in the wilderness. Following are some of my lessons learned for other first-time trail runners.
Cold, hard reality!
I had this idea (naive, as it turns out) that trail running is something that happens on smooth, well-marked dirt paths through trees, fields, and rolling hills. The picture at the top of this blog post is what I envisioned. I took it at a state park on Long Island, NY, during a weekend run. Beautiful, right?
There has been some of that, but the reality has been tougher. I have slogged through miles of mud, across waste-deep streams, tripped over exposed tree roots, crashed to the ground, and climbed steep rock faces where the path seemed to disappear ahead of me.
Running trails can be dark, treacherous, slippery, and overgrown. The picture below is from a 25-kilometer race I did this summer in upstate New York. Yes, they call that a trail! I call it an accident waiting to happen. In fact, I saw one runner, a middle-aged woman, with gauze bandages wrapped around her head at the first aid station. She obviously took a spill.
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen runners, myself included, trip and wipe out during these runs. The hazards include roots, rocks, water crossings, heat, cold, rain, snow, snakes, bears, and other wildlife. You’ve got to be careful and well prepared.
I typically run alone. I wear a Garmin watch with LTE cell connectivity, which can send an emergency alert if help is needed.
Take it slower
Given that trail conditions can be gnarly, I had to reset my expectations and adjust my running style. I had to slow down, take shorter strides, and walk more than I do on roads.
My pace is considerably slower on trails. As one point of comparison, I ran an 8:46 per mile pace during a 5k road run this summer. Around that same time, I ran a 12:43 pace for a 5-mile trail run. Nearly 4 minutes per mile slower.
As a 60+ age group athlete, I really don’t mind mind the slower pace. It’s safer and lowers the risk of injury. In general, I try to finish in the top half of all competitors on road runs and sprint triathlons, but I find myself more to the back of the pack on trail runs.
Ultras anyone?
I’ve been a casual runner, averaging about 10 miles per week, for years. This past summer, while training for my first trail runs, I logged closer to 18 miles a week. Hard-core runners train a lot more. Some do 10-plus miles a day.
I have a busy work schedule so I do my training runs wherever is convenient — on the streets where I live, a treadmill at the gym, or at a state park on weekends. I do some strength training as well, which is helpful when you’re on the trail for a few hours.
Trail runs come in all shapes and sizes, from local 5k’s to 200-mile runs across mountains and deserts, and everything in between. So-called “ultras” have become very popular. Any trail run longer than a marathon (26.2 miles) is considered an ultra.
Ultras can be endurance events that span several days, where people run with headlamps through the night to see where they’re going. Some of the big ones include Moab 240, which is a 238-mile run that ascends 28,893 feet in total (about the height as Mount Everest), and UTMB, which is a 106-mile run around Mount Blanc that winds through France, Italy, and Switzerland.
I haven’t attempted an ultra, and I’m not sure I want to. I ran the Chicago Marathon years ago, and I decided then that long distance running wasn’t my idea of fun. The longest trail run I did this year was a 25k, which was enough of a challenge. More on that below.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
I competed in a half dozen organized trail runs this year from April to November. Here’s a sampling of the good, the bad, and the ugly (in reverse order because that’s the sequence in which I completed them).
The Ugly: Leatherman’s Loop 10k, Cross River, NY, April 2023. Billed as the largest trail race east of the Mississippi River, this race has been going on since 1987. According to the website, “It features river crossings, mud flats, a quarry climb, beautiful pine forests, swamp land, and the Legend of the Leatherman,” a local, mythical figure dating back to Civil War times. This trail is known to be muddy under the best of conditions, but it rained heavily the night before the race and during the race, so it was worse than usual. In fact, one of the tips they give is to duct tape the shoes onto your feet so they don’t get pulled off in the mud. Not fun. This event was a wake up call for me in terms of the unfavorable conditions you sometimes encounter. I completed the race in 1:31:23, a pace of 14:20 per mile.
The Bad: Fabulous Fahnestock 25k, Fahnestock State Park, NY, August 2023. I thought this course would be a nice run in the park, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I was lulled into a false sense of complacency by the event website which shows people running through wildflowers, captioned “a lot to love.” My primary complaint is that the trail was so covered with large rocks (as seen in photo 2 above) that I was forced to walk for long sections of the course. Also, the trail was minimally marked with small flags, and I found myself in the middle of the forest searching for the next sign post. And, because there were fewer than 100 runners spread over the 16-mile course, I was on my own for much of the run without anyone to see or follow. At one point, feeling lost in the woods, I sat on a rock and pulled up a high-res Avenza map to check my whereabouts. It was stressful. My finish time was 5:03:45, an excrutiatingly slow pace of 18:38 per mile, and a full 90 minutes behind my estimated finish time. I would not recommend this one to beginning trail runners.
The Good: Brookhaven Trail Half Marathon, Wading River, NY, November 2023. Without question, this was the most enjoyable trail run I’ve done so far — a wide running path covered in leaves on a crisp, sunny fall morning. You can see it in photo 4 below. My time was 2:32:24, a pace of 11:38/mile—a full 7 minutes per mile faster than the grueling Fahnestock 25k. The route was well marked and there were helpful volunteers at key points to keep you on course. It was an excellent trail run for beginners.
Tips for beginners
Hopefully, novice runners will find my experiences helpful as they get started on their own trail-running journeys. Following are a few bits of advice, keeping in mind that I’m a relative newbie at this myself.
- Know the trail. Learn in advance as much as you can about the route you will take. Message the organizers with questions.
- Visit the race site and do a practice run if possible.
- Train for the conditions — hills, heat/cold, distance.
- Carry enough food and drink.
- Take safety precautions — cell phone, GPS watch, map, whistle, bear spray. Let friends/family know how long you expect to be out there.
- Take shorter strides and a slower pace.
- Walk up hills, jog down hills. Take regular walk breaks.
- Make full use of water stops to stay hydrated and make adjustments, such as change of socks/shirt, apply sunscreen, etc.
- Wear trail running shoes, which have treads on the sole.
- On the course, make a mental note of landmarks, so you can regain your bearings if lost.
Good luck out there. Be safe and happy trails!
