Tag: SPM

Taking performance in stride

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Today’s run (street): 2.5 miles

I’m not sure why, but I’ve woken up with more energy this week than normal. I don’t feel like I’m sleeping any better, but once I’m up, I’m good to go. That helped today when I prepared to go out for my run at 4:00 AM. I felt ready, willing and able. Maybe it’s the cooler weather.

I hit the road focused on form, paying particular attention to my stride length. It still puzzles me why I don’t run faster than I do, and I think I may improve speed by opening up my stride. My Garmin 210 doesn’t capture cadence so it’s hard to know how I’m doing in terms of achieving 180 SPM. I suppose I could count steps but I find that hard to do accurately.

I ended up having one of my better 4:00 AM runs today and averaged 15 seconds per mile faster than usual. I had plenty of energy to draw on throughout the run and still had much in reserve. Opening my stride helped me move along better than I have in recent runs. If I can feel the same way on Saturday morning, I may just meet my target splits for Cow Harbor.

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Is cadence the key?

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Not quite stepping lively

Today’s run (treadmill): 2.51 miles

I had lunch yesterday with a friend, TC, who’s just been granted entry to the NY Marathon after being accepted as a charity runner by the Boomer Esiason Foundation (Cystic Fibrosis). TC is about to start serious training and he asked me to help him set up his Garmin FR60 on Garmin Connect. Although TC has been using this watch for months, he’s never uploaded his runs. I had no idea that the FR60 could hold 90 workouts but that’s what was uploaded. It was interesting to see his runs displayed on Connect. I couldn’t help but compare his typical pacing and cadence to mine. It wasn’t much comparison though. He seems to average 90 SPM while I’m happy when I exceed 84.

I thought about cadence this morning as I ran on the treadmill. I’m past thinking that any one thing (core exercise, LSD, tempos, Chia) will produce measurable improvement. However, it seems logical that an increase in cadence would align with an increase in running speed. As I worked my way up from my easy start, I was curious to know if my cadence would increase as I moved my pace from 9:50 to 8:50 over my run. After the run I realized that the FR 210 doesn’t capture cadence data off the foot pod so I’ll never know how I did for SPM today. I guess I’ll need to revert to the FR60 for treadmill runs in the future.

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