I do pay some attention to cadence. Not that this is the be all end all but to your point to watch my stride. Running is opposite race walking. In running you increase stride length while maintaining cadence. IN race walking you maintain stride length while increasing cadence.

The rational behind the cadence is to get a long stride *behind you* not in front. When you stride is long in front a few "bad things" happen:

* It is HARDER (you have to lift your weight over yourself)
* More likely to heel strike
* You are on the ground longer, which is also part of harder.

Try this little experiment. Go up to a set of stairs and put your toes right up against the bottom step. Now step back a foot or so. Step and up and down the step a few times to feel the effort. Should feel pretty easy. Now back up some more and step and up and down again. It's harder isn't it? A long stride takes more work

To a large extent though I say run how you run.

Ooh! I noticed yesterday while running that when I increased my cadence, I was able to move up to 9.5mph with little effort, but I also fell more economic and no pain. My question is: how do I know what cadence I am running?

A simple way to to count "one" every time your right (or left) foot lands for one minute and then multiply by 2. You can also get numerous cadence apps or devices (essentially metronomes)

Ooh! I noticed yesterday while running that when I increased my cadence, I was able to move up to 9.5mph with little effort, but I also fell more economic and no pain. My question is: how do I know what cadence I am running?

Get a garmin footpod, it does all the work for you. :laugh:

I started to watch my cadence only because a higher cadence is suppose result in less impact on your ankles and knees. Since you aren't striding out so much the impact is distributed better. I already have arthritis in my left knee so just increasing my cadence from the low 150s up to the high 160s has helped a lot. If I really focus I can get up to 170. Never seen 180.

I (6'2") run with my wife (5'3"). My cadence is 170ish, hers is 120 - apparently it looks hilarious...

but I enjoy not getting injured so much, and find it easy to do now I've been practicing for a year or so. Its also quicker for me (so i can keep up with my wife now!)

What you might want to try to do is to pay attention to having your feet land more or less underneath your hips. Doing this will naturally increase your turnover, which is without a doubt better for your running. My last race had a cadence of 182 and even on long runs, it's up near 180. Today's 10 miles was an average of 178. Ultimately though, the number isn't overly important, it's just a means to developing a good stride.

Imho, of course.. )

This focus has been the best improvement in my running. I have also recently read the book Chi Running which talks a lot about the form and the pace. Foot landing underneath you but also as it is landing underneath you, the leg/foot should also be pulling back already so that when it strikes the ground it is moving with the ground and not against it. This causes no jarring compared to heel striking in front of you where you are slowing yourself down slightly on impact.
For me now, when I want to run faster, I lean forward and the cadence stays the same. My stride gets longer but the landing and cadence stay the same. I started learning the cadence on the treadmill where I could focus on it. Really comes down to 3 steps per second which is easy to see on the treadmill display. The first few times out my shins and other parts of my leg became sore and it took a bit to get acclimated.
I have also concentrated on other elements afterwards too as mentioned in the Chi running book such as hips straight, arms also moving backwards and not in front of you and not swinging across your body. It has taken me from a push my butt to run an 8 min mile to run an 8 min mile standing up straight not taxing my heart rate. Quite a difference and quite a journey. These references shared by others are great too.

If you run with music, check out something like this:

http://www.runnersworld.com/workout-music/cruise-control-running

or

http://www.cadenceapp.com/

I like podrunner :-)

http://www.djsteveboy.com/podrunner.html

Great info here! Will be saving this post for future reading.

Never payed attention to this before. But tonight I took 1 minute during mile 7 and counted - Mine is 182. Close enough for me.

There is a ton of good info about this topic here: http://runblogger.com/2011/02/stride-rate-stride-length-speed.html

I remember all those outcomes when I switched my cadence. When you get it down though, you can run so effortlessly. Continued good luck.

I'm a quarter inch under 5'8" but my stride length is greater than people I run with who are over 6'. I generally have a midfoot to forefoot strike and I've never counted the cadence of my footsteps but I expect the number falls drastically short of 180. When I increase pace it's almost always an increase in stride length rather than cadence. When I increase leg turnover it feels uncomfortable--like I'm tripping over myself.

Is this because I'm an old man or because I have no co-ordination?

Yes.

*runs away*

Ended up reflecting on this post last week when I went out, I managed to pick a different track on my audio so found myself at a higher cadence than I'm used to. Having been reading this I consciously adapted to the increased faster music, shortened my stride and was much more conscious of my form.

It was hard work but I knocked 90 seconds off my 5K time one night and then improved my 12 minute distance by 300m the following night.

I've been finding that music helps me a lot, so rather than trying to count my paces I aim to keep working at the pace of the music.

The form issue seemed to help me a lot as well, after three runs using a shorter stride and higher cadence I didn't have even a hint of the usual niggles. A little bit of DOMS but nothing special.