Running cadence (Read 156 times)

The discussion about what is a normal or good cadence is discussed often, though there's no one right answer.   I think most will find their cadence is slower when running at slower speeds, and faster at faster speeds, despite some literature saying you should strive for the same number regardless of speed.  The mythical cadence of 180 is what some shoot for, and Jack Daniels has written about it in his book.

I'd say your pretty normal with your cadence, as far as normal goes.   If you google "optimal running cadence" you'll find lots of articles on it. But, the bottom line is that we naturally use a cadence that's optimal for us.

I'm only 5'2" so I would think my cadence would normally be higher?

Funny you talk about stride length.  I was in PT for a running injury and the idiot new PT tried to tell me I needed to lengthen my stride and kick out my knee with every step.  He messed my running up so much and gave me a new injury.

Thanks for the input.  I'll start tracking it and comparing my slower and longer runs.

Normal? Probably. Ideal? Probably not.

 

A lot of us tend to overstride and shuffle along when we'd be better off picking up our feet. Pace = stride length x cadence, so improving your cadence will make you faster. It will also help to keep you from overstriding, which in the long run (pun intended) can lead to all sorts of injuries. Now that you have this toy you can track it and work on getting your easy run cadence up to ~180. You'll feel the difference.

 

Which reminds me, I need to find my footpod and start working on cadence myself this off season...

I've talked about this in other boards, so forgive me if you've heard it before.

As we age (I'm 64) we lose flexibility in our joints.  This leads to a shortened stride.

I've always had a fairly quick cadence, right around the mythical 180 but it's just been in the past few years that I noticed (as I became slower) that my foot strike, which had always been heavy heel and supination, was now also a dragging of the foot as I landed.  Actually more of a skidding into the landing.  I started using a foot pod to measure my cadence and it showed that my stride length was a paltry .99 to 1.01 meters.  I'm 5'11" and I think my natural walking stride is longer than that.

With that information I began to concentrate on pushing off from my toes, and engaging my hips as I moved forward.  The result was a slightly lower cadence (now around 176) but my stride length has increased to 1.05 to 1.07.  Those few centimeters each equate to about 5 seconds per mile.

So after being a marathon runner for over 15 years this is all new to me and incredibly interesting.  I appreciate everybody's input.

I've normally just focused on my pace.  And since I'm happy with my speed with 3 BQ's (and hoping for another in a couple months), I've never paid attention to it.  But I wonder if I could be running more efficiently, unless my cadence and stride length are considered within the normal range.

My Garmin data shows my stride length at 1.08m.  So is that too short then?  Again I'm only 5'2".  I also run in Newton's so I'm a forefoot striker.  Not sure if that adds to the equation or not.

No @LedLincoln I appreciate your input.  I really had no idea until now whether it was something I should be paying attention to.  So while I'll just look at the logs I won't worry about it.

I appreciate everyone's input.  Thanks!

My new (3 months or so) iPhone 6 at least pretends to monitor my cadence.  I haven't really worked at increasing it, but I've been watching it and it has increased slightly from about 170 on an easy run to 175 or so.  During shorter races (5K & 10K) it jumps up to around 185.

I haven't run a longer race since I've had it, but I would think it might end up somewhere around that magical 180 number.

Not sure any of this has made any difference in anything though, I'm actually slower right now but I've been running 100 mile months instead of 150+ mile months with targeted workouts.

It tracks your steps.  Runkeeper then adds that to their data and computes the steps per minute for you.  It only shows up on the app though, not on the website.