How to Avoid Falling on Trails

Audio Transcript

Claire: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Runners Connect, Run to the Top Extra Kick podcast.

We have a great question today from Kathy about trail running.

Kathy: Hi! This is Kathy and my question is about trail running.

I’m interested to know what you tell your trail runners who are concerned about falling. Are there techniques that they should be using to prevent it, or is it more helpful just to not worry about it? Thanks.

Claire: Fantastic question. The first thing to remember is that if you don’t fall trail running, it’s really not a trail run.

That’s not quite true, but it is given that at some point you will fall and most likely you’ll be fine.

The first tip that I can give you is to expect that you will fall and just accept that. It will be a jolt of adrenaline the first time it happens, but if you are ready mentally for a fall, you will handle it much better than if it’s a total shock.

Trail running requires a lot more focus than running over smooth roads.

In road running you can zone out, you can listen to music and keep your gaze 20 feet ahead of you. Do that on the trail and you are bound to take a digger and twist an ankle [03:00].

A focus on the trail, one well known ultra-runner David Laney, he would write MIT on his hand during races, which stood for Mind in Trail. I love this concept.

David found that if he let his mind wander, he would lose focus and his performance would suffer. That acronym on his hand brought his focus back to the trail.

It sounds a bit like meditation, right? Well, it kind of is. In trail running you can’t get away with spacing out and thinking about your grocery list or your laundry or your work stress, like you can on a run in the park.

Trail running forces you to be in the present, navigating over routes and rocks as you go up and down the terrain.

What you want to do is keep your eyes locked on the trail about five feet or so ahead of you. If you look down at your feet, not only will your form be completely out of whack, but you will not be able to prepare for the terrain ahead.

If you look too far forward, you’ll miss what’s directly in front of you and be likely to fall.

As far as form goes, you’ll still want to use the same good form as you do on the roads, but with some alterations.

Your torso should remain tall, with your shoulders down and relaxed, just like always.

You’ll want to take quick, light steps to not only avoid unnecessary pounding, but also so that if you do land on an unstable surface like a loose rock, you are already moving on to the next step before you have a chance to slip.

On both inclines and declines you’ll want to have a slight forward lean to take advantage of gravity.

On the descents, the forward lean also helps prevent that natural braking reaction we tend to have going downhill, which can add a lot more stress to your quads.

You don’t want to lean forward so much that you actually fall down the hill, but a little bit of a slight lean is what you want.

It sounds pretty obvious, but you will need to use a slightly higher leg lift and the fancy term for that is vertical oscillation.

That is to prevent hitting obstacles with your feet as you sweep your leg forward. This is something that was pointed out to me a few years ago on a big trail run with some friends of mine who run trails almost exclusively.

One of my buddies said, “Yes, you’re definitely a road runner,” and I was like, “I thought I was holding myself pretty well.” I asked him how he could tell that from just the way I ran, and he said, “You don’t pick up your legs.” Ouch!

One more tip to keep you up right is to work on your core strength.

A solid core will help make your legs more adaptable to any terrain, because you can more easily keep your balance if you lose your footing.

What do you do if you do happen to fall or when you fall, I should say? Do your best to stay relaxed and try to tuck and roll out of it.

If you stiffen and flex your arms out rigidly in front of you, you’re more likely to get hurt.

If you’re about to fall on your face on a rock, protect your face of course, but other than that you really want to try to be relaxed and not have your arms breaking your fall, so don’t try to fight it and just go with it.

After falling on almost every trail run that I went on, I began to wear fingerless gloves to protect my palms, like the ones that weight lifters wear.

It’s funny that when I started doing that, the falls seemed to stop. It’s probably a bit of Murphy’s Law going on there, but wearing those was a good reminder to keep my mind in the trail.

I love this question Kathy and thanks for sending it in.

I hope you enjoyed it and if you have a burning running, training question that you are just dying to ask one of the coaches, go ahead and send it in on our website.

You can go to runnersconnect.net/daily, hit the record button and send your question over.

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Hope you enjoyed today’s episode and have a great run today.