Trail endurance sessions are an opportunity to improve your trail running skills. Look to get your trail pace as close to your road running pace as you can. Develop a sense of what your trail pace VS your road pace will be on varying surfaces, gradients, windiness of trail, uphill and downhill.
Work on trail awareness by paying attention to the following
- The impact of various surfaces on your pace
- Foot placement on all surfaces
- Shorten your stride and speed up your cadence on very technical footing
- Drop hips on technical downs
- Fast and light feet when descending, don’t commit to any one step
- Jumping down big drops when descending
- The difference between running and walking on hills
- Uphill running technique
- Using calves
- Using big steps
- Using small steps
- Walking technique up the steep climbs
- Using quad push-off (Gorilla Walk)
- Focus on muscle usage of calves VS glutes