6 min/mile at cadence 180 - increase in stride rate or length more efficient?

You’re not going to tangibly change your stride length in a week. You could potentially change your cadence, but it would likely mean you shorten your stride length inadvertently. But if you want to actually try to accomplish something, it’s taking more steps.

Your stride length will increase over time, but you can’t consciously try to increase your stride and maintain or increase your cadence without tripping over your feet.

Agreed - never a good idea to make big changes so close to a race. This is more out of curiosity and for future races. Thanks for the input though!

kahtap wrote:

Agreed - never a good idea to make big changes so close to a race. This is more out of curiosity and for future races. Thanks for the input though!

I’m that case, focus on cadence. You should be able to get it to a consistent 185-190 for a race. The stride length will come.

Good luck in Houston! I'll be at the expo... first one in a long time.

I'm a little curious (or perhaps bothered) by stride frequency ever since I read in "The Running Formula" decades ago that the cadence should be 180ish, but I'm always around 164-168. I've wondered if it is worthwhile to try to work on it (or just run and let it be what it be), and if I were to try to increase the cadence, how does one go about doing that? Run downhill reps?

Regardless, if I were to try to change anything, I'd select cadence over length (because length will just happen as you're running faster)... but, if I were already at 180, then I don't know if I'd try to change anything.

Honestly not sure how to increase, for me just running more miles does the trick. When I come off a long break natural cadence is around 170 and when I get in shape it naturally seems to come up to about 180.

Consciously thinking about increasing stride rate seems to have worked for me during intervals etc when trying to keep up pace around 5:45/mile for threshold type efforts but for faster stuff (V.O2 efforts) it seems like mentally focusing on longer strides is the only way I can run anything close to 5:30 or faster. I know that’s what I have to do to longer term if I’m gonna get significantly faster but in the short run just wondering what would be more economical. For reference, I’m naturally way better at longer distances. Doubt I can crack a 5 min mile and almost certainly can’t run sub 65 sec quarter. Maybe going back to do shorter stuff after the marathon is the way to go.

I think both tend to happen naturally as you speed up. If I look at my runs/races on Garmin Connect, faster runs have both higher cadence and longer strides.

My guess is cadence is easier to improve because you can count steps as you are running. You get immediate feedback, and have a variable that you can control. Think about shorter ground contact time and getting the next foot down quickly.

Stride length is harder to measure while you are running. I don't have any formal training in exercise phys, but it seems to me that "stride length" is would be better defined as horizontal displacement. To me, it feels like you increase that horizontal displacement with a more powerful stride so that it propels you forward further each step (i.e., more distance covered while you're in the air). You don't do it by creating a significantly wider angle to make a big giant step. That's just gut feel and intuition. I could be completely wrong on that.

Bottom line for me is there is a small limit on how much you can increase the size of your step before it becomes inefficient. So speed comes from higher frequency (again with an upper practical limit) and a more powerful stride to create a greater horizontal displacement.

Find the best shoes for you. Some shoes increase your stride rate and some increase your stride length.

The materials and the shape of the sole affects ground contact time which affects your biomechanics.

But when you run, don't think about it too much.

Interesting idea about lower perceived effort being related to how easy it is to count steps - this is true but I definitely don’t count steps. If anything when trying to improve stride length I consciously think about knee drive and glutes engaging. I just feel like when I do that it’s more taxing than thinking about taking quick steps though I’m not sure if the end results are similar in terms of how much faster I’m running. I wonder if this has been scientifically studied or if it’s just a ymmv situation

At 6 pace mine is same 178-180. I’m trying to run a 1:20 half in Houston so maybe we will be hanging around together until the split.

Weather is looking Pretty solid it seems.

Oh cool, yeah good luck! Temps seem good but it’s gonna be kinda windy, forecast is 15 mph wind so ideally we can find a pack to run with and share the work into the wind.

I think during race I’ll consider going for slightly higher cadence if legs feel good since it worked in the past (up from baseline 181/2 to maybe 184).

I think wind is going to be less and gusts around 15 but not average. It being north wind not really facing it until the very end it looks like. At least in the half.

Looks like wind speeds are going to be close to if not above 15 mph in some parts of town Sunday morning. I did a few training runs in higher wind speeds and found higher cadence seemed to be less effort than longer strides in windy conditions, so prob going to err in that side if the situation seems to call for it.

Wind is really sucking today! I have seen forecast for 10. And 15 tomorrow. It’s hard to predict wind tho. I’m holding out hope for calmness