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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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=Muscle Damage=
Running, and especially [[Downhill Running]] tends to produce muscle damage and [[Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness]]. This damage immediately weakens the muscles, with recovery and remodeling of the muscle fibers taking around 14 days<ref name="images"/>. After a single bout of DOMS, the muscle fibers undergo 'profound adaptations' to be more resilient<ref name="images"/>. It seems reasonable that this mechanism is a key benefit of the Long Run. Therefore a long run should be long enough to create some muscle damage, while balancing the risk of injury. Similar muscle damage can be seen after a marathon that can take up to 8 weeks to recover from<ref name="Warhol-1985"/>.
<gallery widths=300px heights=200px caption="Muscle damage from eccentric exercise (downhill running)" perrow="2">
File:EccentricA.JPG|Muscle before downhill running<ref name="images"/>
File:EccentricC.JPG|Immediately after downhill running<ref name="images"/>. Notice the disruption to the dark bands (z-bands) that are part of the muscle structure showing there is immediate damage.
File:EccentricB.JPG|Muscle 14 days later<ref name="images"/>, structurally recovered (other metrics do not return to pre-exercise levels at 14 days).
</gallery>
<gallery widths=300px heights=200px caption="Muscle damage after running a marathon" perrow="2">File:MarathonFiberDamage.jpg|The selective pattern of damage, showing the normal upper fiber adjacent to the 'moth eaten' appearance of the damaged lower fiber.]]File:MarathonFiberDamage2.jpg|Here you can see extreme damage, with only the Z band of the fiber remaining (marked Z). Adjacent fibers show far less damage.]]|}</gallery>
=Anecdotal Advice=
