I ran track in high school. The track I ran on was a plain old, black cement track. Granted, it seemed like a softer cement, so the impact wasn’t as bad on your joints as, say, running on a regular sidewalk of black top would be, but you still could get shin splints if you over did it, or didn’t wear the right shoes.

Fast forward 15 years and they have these nifty tracks, even at high schools, made out of something called vulcanized rubber, which is almost like a silicone polymer, in that it’s quite squishy and soft, but it also has a durability of no other softer rubber, since it will be run on again and again.

To look at a rubberized track, it almost looks as though there are flecks of rubber all over the track, and it feels as though you are running or walking on air instead of hard ground. My boyfriend and I went jogging, running and walking on a brand new rubberized track yesterday and boy, could you tell the difference. Today, my joints are sore at all, and my back doesn’t hurt from the usual jolting I experience from running on cement.

Usually, two disks up near my neck get compressed, and I have to do a lot of stretching after running or jogging, but not so with this type of track. The cool thing was, since it was a high school track, there were bleachers, so we can also run the bleachers next time for some extra sweating, cardio and calorie burning plus more muscle building and endurance building.

They also had those tall iron structures that you can use for stretching, where you can stretch basically any part of your body, hang upside down and realign your spine, and stretch the backs of the legs really well because of the positioning of the bars and the angles and heights. Very cool. We just moved into the area and had been meaning to check out the track and its amenities forever, and finally made it there.

This will be an excellent addition to our workout regimen, and we can do it well into the fall, and on winter thaws if we want to. It’s better than some treadmills and other home exercise equipment, and gets you outside, although I’ll admit it’s less convenient if it’s not super close. The rubberized track is phenomenal. If you’re a runner or jogger, you could totally appreciate the impact absorption and how much further you can go.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 8:05 am and is filed under Workout Regimens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.