increasing cadence feels stiff and awkward

Try starting at more like 175 at first. Ease your way into things. And yeah it is typical to feel stiff/awkward at first. Using a metronome is invaluable for learning to increase cadence easily.

A slowdown of 45-60 seconds per mile is odd, though. Economy is slightly affected by changes in cadence, but increasing cadence by less than 10% should not have that big of an impact. Make sure you're not achieving the lower cadence by "chopping" your stride by lifting your leg off the ground too early or altering your stride in any other strange way.

You already know how to use a fast cadence efficiently - you definitely use 180-190 strides per minute when you run at 5k or 10k pace (assuming you're a halfway decent runner). Try to visualize yourself running at 10k pace, and run with those mechanics. But just run your usual easy pace instead, if you can.

Thanks for the advice!

I guess I cannot figure out how to achieve a higher cadence without "chopping" my stride and altering my stride significantly. If I keep my normal mechanics and just increase my cadence I end up going 5k pace. I ran a 16:41 5k last summer with a 178 cadence and 1.67 m stride length. Marathon pace for me was 6:01pace (2:37:55) at 172 cadence this past October.

I can't figure out how to shorten my stride length, but not be "choppy". If I run with similar race mechanics (which is much more comfortable), but an easy pace, my cadence just goes lower.

When I try to run easy, but at a high cadence, I find my knees don't really lift (the stiff feeling I am talking about). If I lift my knees more, I start springing along and down goes my cadence. How does one lift their knees more, and increase cadence, but not go faster. It seems like it should be easy, but I cannot grasp it.

If I don't think about it, 6:30-6:40 at 168 cadence seems quite easy. I would love for this pace to be at 176-180 cadence. However, when I try this, I get the cadence right (but it honestly feels like a cadence of >200), but my pace goes to 7:15 to 7:30.

If I were not so often injured, I wouldn't care.

I have always been an incredibly bad athlete at sports like soccer, basketball, etc. It likely takes a certain level of skill to alter one's stride in an efficient way. I wonder if I am just trying to do something outside by ability?

You don't say what pace you are running at. The ROT for cadence is based on elite athletes and unless you are running faster than 7-8 minutes per mile doesn't apply.

Just run and stop listening to form fanatics.

In reply to what pace

I am running 5:50-6:00 tempo (172-174 cadence) runs of 8-10 miles and 6:30 to 7:00 on easy days (with around 168 cadence). I would like my 6:30 to 7:00 pace runs to be 176-180. Again, when I try this, I fail miserably. When I shoot for this high of cadence I end up running much slower and I feel like a stiff robot.

In regards to the other reply about not caring. I would love to, but I am often injured and many claim to be less injured once they increased their cadence.

Thanks!

awkward fast cadence wrote:

I am running 5:50-6:00 tempo (172-174 cadence) runs of 8-10 miles and 6:30 to 7:00 on easy days (with around 168 cadence). I would like my 6:30 to 7:00 pace runs to be 176-180.

Your cadence is fine as it is.

Doing 176-180 at 6:30 pace would be way too high.

awkward fast cadence wrote:

In reply to what pace

I am running 5:50-6:00 tempo (172-174 cadence) runs of 8-10 miles and 6:30 to 7:00 on easy days (with around 168 cadence). I would like my 6:30 to 7:00 pace runs to be 176-180. Again, when I try this, I fail miserably. When I shoot for this high of cadence I end up running much slower and I feel like a stiff robot.

In regards to the other reply about not caring. I would love to, but I am often injured and many claim to be less injured once they increased their cadence.

Thanks!

Ah ha. Based on your race times, I\'d suggest you consider the possibility that your easy pace of 630-700 is too fast... THAT can definitely contribute to injury. Just plugging in your 238 marathon into Daniels vdot charts gives something like 710 easy pace. Try running easy days 7:10 or slower and see what happens to your injury rate.

As for your original question, I felt choppy/unnatural for several months. Try incremental steps, as somebody else suggested.

The reason you feel awkward is, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Your body selects the optimum combination of stride length and cadence for the speed you're running and your strength level, and messing with your stride, by itself, can get you injured (see: Ritz). You should consider cadence to be a second order effect, and you change the things that cause cadence and stride length to change:

(1) Get stronger. Increase strength by sprinting (not running) steep hills or lifting weights. This increases power, which turns into shorter contact times, which turns into faster cadence--and longer strides as well.

(2) Faster strides during warmup, and possibly some sprints or short speed on the track. Get used to running faster.

(3) Drills, A-B-C type drills and particularly the fast leg drills.

Run at natural cadence. Forcing cadence changes reduces economy. The fixation on 180 is unfounded.

awkward fast cadence wrote:

In reply to what pace

I am running 5:50-6:00 tempo (172-174 cadence) runs of 8-10 miles and 6:30 to 7:00 on easy days (with around 168 cadence). I would like my 6:30 to 7:00 pace runs to be 176-180. Again, when I try this, I fail miserably. When I shoot for this high of cadence I end up running much slower and I feel like a stiff robot.

In regards to the other reply about not caring. I would love to, but I am often injured and many claim to be less injured once they increased their cadence.

Thanks!

I've had similar issues the last few years trying to come back after years of being noncompetitive. My high 15's 5k and 9:40's 3200 PR's are from my teens, but I'm currently trying to get back to sub 16 shape (late 20's now). Ran 16:20 recently, my first time sub 17 in 7+ years. The last few years I've dealt with more injuries running 30 mpw than I ever did running 50-60 mpw when I was younger. I, like you, would get into decent shape running 6ish for tempos and sub 7 for "easy" runs. I also came to the same conclusion as you, that my stride rate must obviously be too slow (or I was overstriding) and need to make a change to avoid injury. I also was having shin pain, primarily. Unfortunately, the high cadence advice is mostly wrong. In fact, I'd say its terrible advice directed at novice runners, having become something of a go-to for sports therapists that don't actually run.

What did work for me? Variation is the theme. I rotate shoes (and stopped running in the Adidas Glide Boost which seemed to aggravate more than others), more varied pace training (intervals, hills, tempo, fartlek, strides), do distance runs at much easier pace- usually 7:20s-7:30s, take a day off when in doubt (though never 2 in a row), focus on form and relaxation instead of stride rate, and foam roll every night- calves, shins, hams, quads, glutes, abductors, back. I can say that my running with a metronome (which I did for 4-6 weeks) was a completely bogus technique, not helpful at all. I would just say to put more intention into your training, specifically the 2-3 workouts per week, and let the easy runs be true recovery periods, you'll need them to be if you start doing faster work.

Thanks- I likely am just trying to get to it (10 cadence higher) too quickly. I'll try the incremental steps, and as the other person stated, work on speed drills and let a higher cadence come more naturally.

I do need to slow my easy days. Even though I know this, I have a hard time implementing it. Another awkward thing. I feel awkward when running at a slower than 7:00 pace no matter what cadence.

Thanks for all the help!!

Thanks!

Interestingly, my recent shin splints came during this winter when I was just slogging through the miles (waiting for spring) all at the same 6:30-7:00 pace (variation of pace was more weather dependent than effort dependent). When I trained for Chicago starting last May, I made it the longest without injury in 7 years- perhaps by doing much more pace variation (but never slower than 7:00). The same pace runs every day started in december- injured by Feb. I guess the next time I take some down time I will vary pace from moderate to very easy.

I do alternate shoes like crazy- 7 different pairs varying from adios boost, boston boost, kinvara and NB 1400 for tempos and intervals to wave rider, pegasus, and energy boost for slower paced runs