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Run to the Top Podcast | The Ultimate Guide to Running

Road vs. Trails: Debating which Sport has the Better Athletes

Run to the Top Podcast | The Ultimate Guide to Running

RunnersConnect: Coaching Community, Running Experts, Inspiring Runners, No Fluff Blog

Run, Sports, Runners, Health, Fitness, Marathons, Training, Running, Health & Fitness, Runningpodcast, Marathon

4.6931 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2024

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Running has the power to create a strong sense of community, but when it comes to road running and trail running they have very little in common aside from putting one foot in front of the other. These sports require different skills and come with their own set of challenges. This is part of what makes them so much fun. While we love both of these sports, we thought it would be fun to debate who are the better athletes: road runners or trail runners?

You typically need more all-out speed to excel on the roads and it takes some time to callus your legs to the impact of racing on hard pavement. This doesn’t mean it’s any easier than trail running though, which takes a lot of agility navigating different terrains and precision to fuel for more time on your feet. There’s no easy way to answer who are the better athletes so RC coach Hayley Munn joins the show to help settle this question.

We can’t promise we’ll follow any formal debate rules but we can promise a fun conversation that will including topics like:

  • What skills separate road runners from trail runners?
  • Which types of runners are the better athletes?
  • Which type of running is the most fun?

Connect, Comment, Community

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

When I was a road runner I was good at one thing and that was running a fast marathon but since going to the trail world I've realized I was not very good at other physical attributes like stability and flexibility and strength,

0:15.9

specifically upper body strength. So yeah I feel like since I've become a trauma

0:22.2

trauma I've been forced to work on those attributes and it's just

0:25.7

made me an all-round better athlete.

0:29.2

We're all fans of running at Runners Connect, but what about the best kind of running? I'm talking

0:34.2

about road running and trail running, which are completely different sports with

0:37.9

their own set of challenges. I haven't done a ton of running on the trails

0:41.5

but I thought it would be fun to bring

0:43.2

coach Haley on the podcast for a spirited debate to settle which are the better athletes,

0:47.6

road runners or trail runners.

0:50.0

You might have guessed from the opening clip, but Haley falls in the trail running camp.

0:54.4

There's no denying how much agility is required to navigate different terrains on the trails,

0:59.2

but I'm sticking with the all-out speed of running on the roads. We'll break down the differences between these two very

1:04.6

different sports before giving you our best argument to answer who are the better athletes. With that,

1:10.4

let's get into it. Hello,

1:13.0

Hello runners and welcome to the run-to Top Podcast where our goal is making you a better

1:25.9

runner with each and every episode. I'm your showrunner, Corey Nagler and I'm not an elite

1:31.1

runner but together we'll explore new strategies and topics to take your running to the next level.

1:36.0

This podcast is created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnectnet

1:41.0

where you can find the best running information on the internet, as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget.

1:50.0

Roads versus trails is the age-old question,

1:52.8

and I'm extremely biased towards the roads,

...

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