Trail Runner’s Assault on Road Marathons?

The variety in trail racing courses makes it practically impossible (and somewhat useless) to compare the performances between each other. The type of terrain does vary widely between different races with the same distance: if the route is more or less technical, the percentage of single tracks and wide forest roads or, of course, the number,  incline and severity of the climbs of the pending. Nobody would think of comparing the results and finishing times of the three races of the BAD 135. Running in Brazil, in Minnesota or in Death Valley have only one thing in common: that you are running. Trying to compare finishing times between each other makes absolute no sense. It is not easy even to compare different editions of the same race: the weather conditions can double the toughness or courses and trails may vary from year to year.

I always wonder how trail runners would do in road racing, where it is easier to make comparisons and set PR. However, in recent weeks we have witnessed great performances of trail runners in road marathons. On October 20th Caitlin Smith had a solid performance at the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. 2:58:53 was her time to finish 14th overall. Not bad. Another example is Kami Semick, last year’s winner of the Portland Marathon with a PR of 2:47:22.

But the most outstanding performances happened in the NYC marathon. Max King, recent winner of the XTERRA Trail Run Nationals Half-Marathon, took 18th in this year’s ING marathon with an excellent time of 2:19:11. Not bad for a cross country runner eh?

But there was another spectacular result in New York. Jorge Torres trains around the trails of Boulder, CO, and runs an average of a hundred miles a week. He was 7th with a final time of 2:13:00 on his first marathon. Though he also Competes in other disciplines (like 10,000 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games), the fact that he trains off-road makes him a great example of how good trails can be to achieve great results. Even on pavement.

Is this the rise of the trail running over pavement running? Does running on trails makes you stronger or faster compared to pavement? Do you know any other trail runners putting great performances on road races?