Doing Some Math

This weekend ended up being another "test" of my ability to potentially train for a BQ type pace over the Summer. The goal was to run 21km at 4:58/km. When starting up I had visions of trying the same distance, but at 4:49/km. However, as this was my first run outside since February 1st I reserved the right to change things up while on the go. Indeed, it became very clear that it would be unrealistic for me to average 4:49/km after a first kilometre that took 5:02, even if I could have pushed it, so I decided to simply try for the 4:58/km average.

Long story short, I did complete the distance in 1:42:48, which translated to an average pace of 4:54/km. Test passed! The next day I ran an easy 4km recovery jog with my son, and today I am still feeling the effects of the weekend in the calves... Might have to stay off the planned run tomorrow and simply do some spinning. Oh well.

All that being said, today I had a closer look at my cadence metrics for the past few longer runs. Although I am not averaging the desired 180spm that so many resources tell us we should be striving for, I am pretty close and tend to average either 176spm or 178spm. This is MUCH better than a while back when I was barely hitting 170spm, so it's progress...

But something else jumped out at me while looking at these metrics. The cadence is just one of two important factors that determine performance, the other being stride length. It would seem that even if I did achieve 180spm, which has been my focus for some time now, I may still not be able to hit my desired pace to qualify for Boston if my stride length is not long enough! I quickly crunched some numbers and at a cadence of 180spm my stride length would have to be 1.234m in order to achieve a 3hr10m BQ time.

The math to achieve a 3hr10m marathon time looks like this for a few cadence options:

(178 steps/minute = 33,820 steps in 3hr10m; 42,195m divided by 33,820 steps = 1.248m/step)

(180 steps/minute = 34,200 steps in 3hr10m; 42,195m divided by 34,200 steps = 1.234m/step)

(182 steps/minute = 34,580 steps in 3hr10m; 42,195m divided by 34,580 steps = 1.220m/step)

Well, it seems that only once in my recent runs have a hit this stride length, while every other time it rests somewhere in the 1.12m/stride to 1.16m/stride range. The one time I did manage (without being aware of any of the above calculations) I averaged 178spm and my average pace was 4:34/km. That would not get me my BQ sadly, but would translate to a marathon time under 3hr15m, so that's pretty good. On another effort where I DID average 180spm my stride length was 1.20m, which translated to an average pace of 4:39/km. In other words, still too slow.

Therefore, it has become apparent to me that I need to work on my stride length and not only my turnover rate. Seems, upon cursory checking, that the only way to achieve this is to practice things like sprinting (guess they call them "strides" for a reason), improve glute strength, all the while maintaining a good turnover.

It's good to have goals...

PS: At an average stride length of 1.16m (which seems to be a reasonable number to represent my "regular" stride length), and a 180spm cadence the result would be a 3hr22m marathon. Things clearly need to change in this aspect, as well as many others no doubt...

Lesson Learned, Many More To Come, and Hitting 2000km

I have been running slow and steady for just over a year now, and things have gone well all things considered. I have not missed many training runs due to injury, but I haven't exactly gone very fast when it came to the two races that I did enter in 2010 (not including the one I ran with Owen, which was the most fun, but not exactly a goal race).My goal was to stay healthy, and this mission has been accomplished. But a secondary purpose behind all that slow plodding was to go into 2011 strong enough to pick up the pace in training and, hopefully, see a nice big fat BQ at the end of it all.

With all that being said I did not exactly know how to do it. I was basically just going to start running at a faster pace. Easier said than done...

So it came as a surprise, and not without a sense of irony, that a painful ankle revealed to me the wonders of stride rate. This week that is what I focused on and the results have been amazing. My short runs averaged 5:07/km, 5:09/km, and 5:09/km for pace (5km, 5.5km, and 6km respectively, done on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday).

Then the magnificent "Tah-Dah!" moment came yesterday when I ventured out for what turned out to be my long run for the week. The weather forecast called for rain on Sunday and so I decided that I would do my longest run of the week a day early. I went out in the early afternoon and the weather was perfect: Sunny, not too cold, not windy at all. As in the first three runs of the week I just focused on my stride rate and tried to hit 90 steps with each foot per minute (for the optimum rate of 180 steps per minute total). Although I am still not hitting that number I am able to average 85 steps per minute. I have much to learn, mind you, and a long way to go to improve my form and breathing to match the new faster turnover, but I can't argue with the results.

The long run ended up being 15km and my average pace was 4:55/km! For me that's pretty much my half-marathon race pace, and it certainly did NOT feel like I was racing. Until I hit the hills coming out of the Don Valley I was averaging 4:51/km and holding it quite comfortably despite a slightly elevated heart rate. To be able to run that fast on a training run of that distance felt very rewarding indeed.

Also, with that long run my annual mileage passed the 2000km mark!

Today I went out for a short 5km jog in the rain, though it was quite dry while I was running. It was much slower than the other runs this week, on purpose. It was still faster than what has been my "normal", but I was able to hold back a bit by slowing down my stride rate to about 80 steps per minute.

Cadence?

Last night I went out for a hesitant run because my right ankle had been feeling particularly wonky. Truth be told I had doubts about my ability to run at all. But as the saying goes, in every grey cloud there is a silver lining, and mine came in the form of a lesson on cadence.

As I started out on my jog (having dropped the boys off at Beavers and basketball practice, and therefore giving myself just enough time for a quick 5km run) I was by no means in my happy place. My ankle felt like Cleveland after "The Decision", though I knew I'd get over it much faster than Cavs fans ever will. As a result I was forced to take smaller steps to limit the amount of work my ankle had to do. Also, because I was in a bit of a time crunch I was also forced to pick up the pace in order to complete my run in time to shower and get back to picking up the boys from their activities.

Then I had one of those zen moments and decided to count how many steps I was taking in a minute. More accurately, I decided to see how many steps I COULD take in a minute. In the back of my mind I had the knowledge that the best cadence is somewhere around 90 steps per minute per foot (full rotations) and I wanted to see if what felt like a fast turnover for me would approach that number.

My first test ended up at 86 steps with the right foot, and I though this wasn't too bad. It didn't feel entirely comfortable, but it didn't feel like I was trying that hard either. Without knowing it my pace had increased significantly! Buoyed by this I decided to try and maintain a high cadence for the rest of the run, testing myself again a couple of kilometres later. The second test came in the second to last kilometre and I managed 85 steps, this time counting the left foot (not that it matters). You can see by my splits that the more I concentrated on cadence the better things got as far as my pace splits went:

1. 6:10 (9:56/mile)
2. 5:12 (8:23/mile)
3. 5:03 (8:08/mile)
4. 4:41 (7:32/mile)
5. 4:28 (7:11/mile)

Looks like I will be concentrating on cadence from now on since I found this to be a very good and rewarding exercise. Something else to focus on, and with seemingly terrific results on overall speed.

In other completely unrelated news I want to direct your attention to the story of Canadian Simon Bairu, who ran and had to drop out of his first ever marathon over the weekend in a little known event called the New York City Marathon. After hitting the wall pretty hard he went through an ordeal that I would not have expected at a "world class" event, and especially given that he is an Elite athlete and was in the lead pack until being forced to stop as his legs and body gave out. The thing that got me the most is that the paramedics told him they were NOT ALLOWED to give him any food!!! What the hell is up with that?!