May 2017 Running Challenge

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  • MNLittleFinn
    MNLittleFinn Posts: 4,271 Member
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    @karllundy great running this month. Looks like you're well on your way to meeting/exceeding your goal!
  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
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    All this talk about stride length and injury has me thinking. I know it's common sense that speed work should is the first thing to cut out when you are injured. Is this because of stride length? I guess what I am getting at is this: I am convinced that, in addition to inadequate rest this winter, my current hamstring injury situation is most likely the result of a 10K race that I ran in 16F temps in early February. It was cold and I did not have an adequate warm up prior to the race. My normal stats for easy pace are 8:45-8:55, 0.93m stride length and 195 spm cadence. My stats for this race were 7:15 pace, 1.06m stride length and 205 spm cadence. That is about a 14% increase in stride length. But I do not know if this is normal or not. Obviously, both cadence and stride length are going to increase with speed, but by how much?

    So my question is, when you run faster, do you see a higher increase in cadence or stride length? What are your statistics for pace, cadence and stride length for easy runs vs, say, 10K? Just curious, as I am wondering if this is something I might need to work on in the future.
  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
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    @ddmom0811 - That's just awesome. It must be great to know that you have made such an impact on so many young lives!
  • skippygirlsmom
    skippygirlsmom Posts: 4,433 Member
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    @ddmom0811 that's so awesome. Skip will buy Hersey kisses for her favorite teachers and give them a thank you card and a kiss good bye at the end of the year.

    @mobycarp I laughed out loud when I got the track picture. Awesome pictures of where you run.

    Took an unscheduled rest day today, I had a huge headache that kept me up half the night and it still hurt at 5:00 when I got up. I got dressed started up the street and got really sick to my stomach. Decided to go home and get Macy and take her for a walk instead.
  • MobyCarp
    MobyCarp Posts: 2,927 Member
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    lporter229 wrote: »
    All this talk about stride length and injury has me thinking. I know it's common sense that speed work should is the first thing to cut out when you are injured. Is this because of stride length? I guess what I am getting at is this: I am convinced that, in addition to inadequate rest this winter, my current hamstring injury situation is most likely the result of a 10K race that I ran in 16F temps in early February. It was cold and I did not have an adequate warm up prior to the race. My normal stats for easy pace are 8:45-8:55, 0.93m stride length and 195 spm cadence. My stats for this race were 7:15 pace, 1.06m stride length and 205 spm cadence. That is about a 14% increase in stride length. But I do not know if this is normal or not. Obviously, both cadence and stride length are going to increase with speed, but by how much?

    So my question is, when you run faster, do you see a higher increase in cadence or stride length? What are your statistics for pace, cadence and stride length for easy runs vs, say, 10K? Just curious, as I am wondering if this is something I might need to work on in the future.

    @lporter229 - When I run faster, I do indeed have both a higher cadence and a longer stride length. But I don't think the increased stride length is particularly relevant for injuries. Most of it will be because when I run faster, there will be more airborne distance in the stride than when I run slower. The cadence might make some difference, as I'm hitting the ground more frequently.

    But the biggest thing about running faster and injury is simple physics. Force is proportional to velocity squared, and when I run faster I'm hitting the ground harder. If we take the force I hit with at an 8:00 pace to be standard, at a 6:00 pace I will hit the ground with 178% of the standard force. (8:00 = 7.5 mph, 6:00 = 10 mph, (10/7.5)^2 = 1.7777777)

    Between hitting the ground with increased force, and having something in the running chain weak from injury, there's a good chance of both aggravating an existing injury and injuring something else because I compensate for the injury to use other muscles differently and harder than I normally do.

    Another consideration is that at a faster pace, I may have less control of my form; but I think the less control thing is bigger from injury than from pace. My first trip into physical therapy, the sound track was that I probably hurt my feet because I had weak hip abductors and couldn't properly control my foot strike. Fixed the weak hip abductors, and that particular type of foot problem didn't come back.

    The stats? You made me look. Recent 15 mile paced run, 8:02 average pace, 179 average cadence, 1.12 m average stride length. Recent 7 mile solo easy run, 7:49 average pace, 180 average cadence, 1.15 m average stride length. PR 10K, 6:25 average pace, 186 average cadence, 1.36 m average stride length. PR 8K, 6:13 average pace, 191 average cadence, 1.36 m average stride length. I would have thought the cadence would vary more than that, but the stride length is about what I expected before I looked. (do the math) 18%-21% longer stride in a race than on an easy run, in line with your results or a little higher.
  • shanaber
    shanaber Posts: 6,413 Member
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    6 pages behind again! Today is a rest day so instead of running I will go back and get caught up here in between my meetings at work :)
    Date........Miles.......Total
    05/01......0.00........0.00 - Agility trial
    05/02......0.00........0.00 - Rally/Obedience trial
    05/03......4.78........4.78 - Del Mar run
    05/04......4.14........8.92
    05/05......0.00........8.92 - Spin class
    05/06......0.00........8.92 - Spin class followed by Barre class
    05/07......0.00........8.92 - Much needed rest!
    05/08......5.68......14.60 - + Agility Class
    05/09......6.22......20.82 - + Strength Training
    05/10......0.00......20.82
    05/11......0.00......20.82 - + Strength Training
    05/12......5.63......26.45
    05/13......8.64......35.09
    05/14......2.00......37.09 - Dog Beach Mother's Day
    05/15......5.28......42.37
    05/16......5.28......47.65 - + Strength Training
    05/17......0.00......47.65

    exercise.png

    My completed and upcoming Races - Let me know if you will be running too!
    02/05/17 - Surf City Half Marathon
    07/23/17 - San Francisco 1st Half Marathon
    12/16/17 - San Diego Holiday Half Marathon
  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
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    MobyCarp wrote: »

    But the biggest thing about running faster and injury is simple physics. Force is proportional to velocity squared, and when I run faster I'm hitting the ground harder. If we take the force I hit with at an 8:00 pace to be standard, at a 6:00 pace I will hit the ground with 178% of the standard force. (8:00 = 7.5 mph, 6:00 = 10 mph, (10/7.5)^2 = 1.7777777)

    Very interesting point. The difference is huge!
    MobyCarp wrote: »

    Another consideration is that at a faster pace, I may have less control of my form; but I think the less control thing is bigger from injury than from pace. My first trip into physical therapy, the sound track was that I probably hurt my feet because I had weak hip abductors and couldn't properly control my foot strike. Fixed the weak hip abductors, and that particular type of foot problem didn't come back.

    I am also wondering if there are additional things (not related to my hamstrings) that I can do to loosen up my hamstrings. Both my PT and his associate said that my hamstrings were among the tightest they have ever seen (yay me!). I am constantly doing the stretches and strengthening exercises he has given me, but my range of motion just doesn't seem to be budging very much.
  • Azercord
    Azercord Posts: 573 Member
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    So looking at cadence and all these articles I need to pick mine up. From the looks of my runs I do a 158-160 spm and that should be faster from what I'm reading. The articles suggest using a metronome to work you pace and that should work well since I don't usually listen to music and can cue it up. Does anyone else have any other suggestions for picking up spm? I don't ever race so it's not a huge worry but I do like stay uninjured so it might be a good thing to look into.
  • _nikkiwolf_
    _nikkiwolf_ Posts: 1,380 Member
    edited May 2017
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    Azercord wrote: »
    So looking at cadence and all these articles I need to pick mine up. From the looks of my runs I do a 158-160 spm and that should be faster from what I'm reading. The articles suggest using a metronome to work you pace and that should work well since I don't usually listen to music and can cue it up. Does anyone else have any other suggestions for picking up spm? I don't ever race so it's not a huge worry but I do like stay uninjured so it might be a good thing to look into.
    @Azercord
    I think the "magic 180" spm came from an observation on elite runners in races. At least for me, my cadence changes with speed - it might be 160 in a slow easy run but will go to 180+ in a 5k race.
    Here are some articles on running cadence I found interesting:
    Running Speed: Human Variability ... and Stride rate and what it means.
    My personal conclusion was to watch my running form (don't overstride), but don't obsess about the cadence reported by my watch. YMMV, of course.
  • MobyCarp
    MobyCarp Posts: 2,927 Member
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    @Azercord - I agree with @_nikkiwolf_ . As I have trained for races, my natural cadence on easy runs has increased from the low 170s to the high 170s/near 180; but I didn't do anything deliberately targeted at increasing cadence. I've worked on form, and I've done three marathon training cycles of various interval speed work, and it just happened.

    If your major goal is to remain uninjured, and what you're doing is working, don't mess with it.
  • Azercord
    Azercord Posts: 573 Member
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    @_nikkiwolf_ yeah I'm not too worried about hitting the magic 180 but I am showing mild signs of over-striding which I'm worried will add up as I increase mileage. I will just follow the addition of 5% until things feel pretty good.
  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    edited May 2017
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    It was another day of discovery today! :smile: I'm liking this...in a masochistic way, I suppose. :smile:

    Today was a scheduled workout day, and that has been my mid-week, hilly, long(ish) run. With the stressors in this cycle being increased effort instead of added miles, that means I'm repeating the 8 miles I did in prior weeks, but with a tempo effort being added in. In those weeks I would finish in around 1:54 to 1:55 at easy effort. The plan today was to do the first 6 miles at easy effort and then finish with a 2 mile pickup at tempo effort. The resulting time was 1:47, so I shaved almost a minute per mile on average with that pickup over the last two miles.

    The first 6 miles went really well, and I found myself running strong and making good time, despite 70 degrees, high humidity (storms incoming) and some really heavy and steady winds today. Somehow the winds managed to be in my face both ways, but it was also a blessing due to the humidity. My splits were 14:05, 14:27, 13:13, 13:37, 14:31, 15:08. That last one is the second of two consecutive major uphill elevation gains and is always my slowest one on this route. The third mile at 13:13 is typically my fastest mile as it has the greatest elevation loss on the route. Both of those are the same stretch of route, just going the opposite way. :smile:

    Over the last two miles I managed to keep my HR in the desired ranges for tempo effort without dying as I first thought would happen on that first stretch, although I did walk very briefly at a few points on some hills just long enough to bring the HR down a bit when I was going uphill and saw my HR at 165 and was convinced I would drift over my high HR alert of 166. That never actually happened though, so I could have kept going...I was apparently looking for any excuse to slow down obviously! I started back up every time either before my low HR alert chirped or right when it did, so I managed to keep the full 2 miles in the desired range. I'm hoping to stretch that out to running the full distance in the upcoming weeks at this effort. Obviously I need some work in this area. My splits on these final two miles were 10:30 and 11:55. That first one is the only mile that competes with mile 3 as the fastest regular mile on this route as it is also basically all downhill, but a little less so. The last mile is all uphill save for one very steep downhill that I have never been able to take at full speed due to a stretch that is too steep down. I always have to brake for that part, and I don't like being full throttle ahead of that braking either on that hill because that braking is pretty intense on the knees given the grade of the rest of the hill. I'm just a big wuss! :lol:

    5/1 - 8 miles
    5/2 - 4 miles
    5/3 - 8 miles
    5/4 - 4 miles
    5/5 - rest
    5/6 - 9 miles
    5/7 - 4 miles
    5/8 - 6 miles
    5/9 - 4 miles
    5/10 - 6 miles
    5/11 - rest
    5/12 - more rest
    5/13 - 13 miles (plus 0.1)
    5/14 - 4 miles
    5/15 - 8 miles
    5/16 - 4 miles
    5/27 - 8 miles

    90 of 180 miles completed


    exercise.png

  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
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    @azercord - My experience in cadence matches up with @_nikkiwolf_ and @MobyCarp. The only thing that seems to effectively raise my cadence is working on my form and running faster. Back in 2015 I spent some time trying to use a metronome app to raise my cadence and all that wound up happening was pain. You can't force it. It is a natural result of running better. Just work on running better.
  • Azercord
    Azercord Posts: 573 Member
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    Thanks everyone I'll just stay the course then and watch my form.
  • MNLittleFinn
    MNLittleFinn Posts: 4,271 Member
    edited May 2017
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    RespectTheKitty wrote: »
    Well folks, I did it. I am officially registered for the Schaumburg Turkey Trot Half Marathon. It is on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Busse Woods, which is a fantastic course.

    Now it's time to work on my long runs. So far 10k has been my longest run since coming back from the injury. My plan for the summer is to get my long runs back up to 10 miles, and then come September I can work on getting them longer than 10.

    I'm still very uncertain about this, but I feel like I *should* be able to do this.

    You got this. You have more time to train than I did when I got going for my first HM, and you're starting with more of a running background. Don't worry too much about the getting past 10 miles thing. If it helps psychologically, go for it. Otherwise, 10 is enough to get you in shape for a HM. You are totally ready for this running adventure!

    Edit to add: How did I become someone who gives others running advice?? I still feel like a total Newbe!
  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
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    @MNLittleFinn -I think you are far from a newbie!

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