Focus on Strides

On the way home from our Chicago race, I had Toni pull up her race data for me to look at. As her unofficial coach, I was curious to see how her splits played out, as she said she didn't look at her watch much throughout the race, and just ran by feel.....hard.

While looking at her stats, I noticed that her cadence was 160. Which is the same as mine. This should come as no surprise, since our running form is almost identical. But I also know that ideally your cadence should be closer to 170-180. I recently listened to a podcast by Jason Fitzgerald, who stated that a cadence of 170 on an easy, regular ol' run day is a pretty good goal to shoot for, since on speedier days, you'll be closer to 180.

Since 2017 was spent building a strong running base, I told Toni that 2018 we would make a conscious effort to increase our running cadence. The training programs we follow always have strides and hill strides in them. Anywhere from 2-3 runs a week are supposed to have strides in them. Every day I tell Toni what our workout is. At the start of each run, I tell her to remind me of the strides that we're supposed to do, because we just get talking and I forget about them.

So while we were driving home, I mentioned that we should really try hard to remember to do the strides to help with our turnover and speed. And Toni, while driving, said, "Uh, I have a confession."

Me: Ok, what's that?

Toni: I always remember that we have strides to do, and I purposely don't remind you.

Me: What?!?!?!?

This girl, who can bust her booty for a crazy long time in a half, or ten mile, or whatever race distance she's doing, doesn't like to run a little bit speedy for 100 meters at a time?!?!

So I fired her from stride reminders, and will be taking over in that capacity for all of 2018. Here's to some speedier legs and quicker turnover! No thanks to Toni. :P