What are the benefits of cross country or off road running?

Don’t you just love to hate cross country? I do!! Despite it being ultra tough at times, and not at all like  a triathlon why on earth do I do it?



at the start, hence no mud!

Off road running is a good leg and core strengthener. Your stabilising muscles are working harder than usual as are your leg and ankle muscles. Why do you think fell runners are so strong? Look at Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee, they both fell run. They are number 1 and 2 in the world in triathlon. Why didn’t he stick with fell running? I asked him that recently. Although he still fell runs, that kind of racing doesn’t pay the bills.

I watched a ‘mountain race’ the other evening on TV. If you think hills are tough, watch one of those!! They ran UP a mountain, over 557m climbing in an 8km race. The women did that 8km in around 45 minutes, if I remember correctly!!

What do you do to become a better faster cyclist? You do turbo sessions, maybe time trials, hill repeats, and so on. Well think of Cross country running as the icing on the cake of hill running.

Have I convinced you to put it into your programme yet?

The first cross country race of the season was the other weekend for me. 4 river crossings. You could not quite jump and clear it, but I had a damn good try each time! Everyone else… they stepped in and dithered!

Cross Country running? Gotta love it!