Stride Rate

I ran 5 miles last night and the ankle felt a little sore but generally pretty good, I even did 3 tempo miles at an 8:54 minute mile pace. I played around with my stride rate a little which is something that I’ve been considering doing anyway after reading this article.

The article claims that almost all elite distance runners have a stride rate of roughly 180, which means that every minute they take 180 strides or steps. For the mathematically challenged among you that equates to 3 steps per second, or so my calculator tells me. I personally don’t put a lot of faith in that calculator because just the other day I asked it what 1,329,502 * 4 was and it told me “BOOBIES,” which is the answer to many of life’s questions and while it caused me to giggle like a schoolboy reading Moby Dick for the first time, I’m quite sure it’s not the right answer.

Getting back on track, my natural stride rate is around 160, which is a good indication that I’m not an elite athlete. Also a good indication: body fat percentage of 22%, a diet that includes hot waffle sandwiches and feet named 'slow poke' and 'molasses'. Despite all these inadequacies, I have on a couple of occasions shortened my stride and managed to get to 180 strides per minute. I was able to do this for a couple of miles at a time and it resulted in significantly faster times, the downside was that my legs got tired a lot quicker and felt sore in places they don’t usually. I doubt that 5 days before a race is a good time to start messing with your stride, but it’s definitely something that I’m going to look into after the Bolder Boulder.

*tee hee* BOOBIES and Moby Dick all in the same post. *snicker*

Alright, how many of you grabbed your calculator and multiplied 1,329,502 by 4?