WDYDT 3/27: increasing turnover
Just over 5.3 miles. Tuesdays are usually speed days, but I’m being conservative in coming back from last week’s illness, 20, and race. I feel like I’m almost back to 100%, but there is still some lingering drainage that’s more annoying than anything at this point.
My legs felt pretty good overall today. They were initially a little weakish (think newborn horse learning to stand for the first time- kinda uneasy before getting the hang of things), so the “speed” element of today’s workout was mostly just going after a negative split (mission accomplished) and concentrating on leg turnover–something that’s worth doing when your legs are fatigued, especially because you will reach that point in a race when fatigue has set in (if not lactic acid) and it becomes a matter of willpower to move. those. legs. and. arms!
Coach Jack Daniels (yup…) has written about this before and has maintained that optimal range for strides per minute is 180 steps– a number that’s typically a bit more than what most people do. This article has a really great explanation of this concept, but here’s the main jist (in Coach Daniels’ words):
It has been a long time since I last counted my steps while running, but it looks like it’s high time to do so. It’s also time to begin incorporating striders at the ends of my runs; this article from Running Times gives some easy-to-follow instructions as to how to do them.
Onward and upward. The more I learn and read about running, the more work I realize I have yet to do.