Day 46, 319 To Go

February 15, 2013

Hello folks!  I'm back!  Did you miss me?  If so, follow my blog.  Seriously!  I need more followers!  I'm feeling lonely, and after my V Day blog yesterday, I'm really lonely.

So, today, I wanted to talk about a slight change I am trying to make in my running form.  The change is simple and really just an exaggeration of what you do when you are running now.  There are many keys to good running form, and one of those keys is when your foot lands, it should land beneath your body, not in front of it.  One of the ways to accomplish this is with a higher knee kick.

Let me back track a bit...speed is comprised of two things: your running cadence and your stride length.  Your cadence should be fairly steady regardless or your speed although it will drop a bit at slower speeds.  If you keep your cadence at around 170 - 180 steps per minute, you are in a good spot.  To increase speed, then, you need to increase your stride length.  This is accomplished by driving your knee up from the ground with more power and force.  The longer your stride length, the higher your knee will drive upwards.  And the higher your knee drives up, the more likely you are to land with your foot underneath your body.

So, by working on driving my knee upwards with more power and by extension, more height, I am increasing my stride length, my speed and my efficiency.  The problem is that since I am just beginning this change, it is hard!  Not only that, I am not seeing the increase in speed yet, although I do at times feel more fluid and my feet are landing on the ground with a lighter touch (remember easy, light, smooth and fast).

I believe if I can continue to work on this, I will improve my running efficiency which at my age is one of the best ways to improve my speed.  I'm not getting any younger so if anything, my strength and power will diminish so my speed will decrease.  By improving my efficiency, I can fight the ravages of time and continue to improve.

I'll let you know how that goes...

Here are my numbers for today:

Time: 15:00

Distance: 1.64 miles

Pace: 9:11/m

Max Pace: 8:05/m

Calories: 212

Avg HR: 130

Max HR: 143

Again pretty similar to the past couple of days.  I started out pretty stiff since it is Friday and I spent the entire week sitting on my ass.  I need to do some stretching which I will do now.  Time to get off my ass and onto the floor on my back. 

Run for life!