Stride Length and Cadence

While discussing with friends about running gait,

I mentioned that my stride length is at least 3 feet in normal running.

They seemed to be very surprised and thought that it

should be much smaller (I guess they look at my

running gait and it just doesn't seem to be greater

than 2 feet).


Well, let's do some calculation. I know for sure my

running cadence is 180/min or more (I count it many times).

Let's say I run 1km in 6 minutes,

which give 6X180=1080step/min.

And the stride length per step is 1000m/1080=0.926m

0.926mX3.25ft/m=3 ft.

So, it I run at 6:00min/km pace with 180 step/min , my stride lenth is exactly

3 ft.


It will be more than that if I run faster, say I run a 5:00min/Km

pace, my stride length is 3'7''.

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Now, in contemplating the relationship between stride length

and stride cadence(pitch), I noticed the following:


For a slow runner, both their pitch and and stride legth are much lower,

with the pitch being a more influential and dorminant factor.


Let's take an example of a slow runner I know, who happen to run

8:00min/km pace with a pitch of 160,

his stride length in ft is 1000m/(160*8) X 3.25ft/m =2.5ft.

(Can you imagine very step he takes is half a foot shorter,

plus he also takes 20 steps less than that of a 180 pitch 6:00min/km guy).


Sometimes, we see runners who look very much like walking rather than

running, and in fact they are.

Their pich might be as low as 150step/min and their stride length

about 2ft, which explain why their paces are slower than 10:00min/km.

Should they run at a higher pitch, they would be much faster.

I think increasing the pitch for slow runner will automatically

increase their stride length as that would introduce a fly

off time (I really suspect the slow 10:00min/km pace is walking

raher than running, which lack the fly off phase in the "running" cycle).

So, besides gaining on the additional steps per minute for a higher

cadence, the stride length is increased to result into a faster

running.


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For faster runner, their pitch are normallly 180 or higher and there

are not much more room for improvement on the cadence side.

Faster running always result from greater stride length in this case,

and that's why hill training, speed work, etc. is important, which

eventually train the legs to be more powerful and

"fly off" longer through a greater "push off".



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So, the take home lesson from all this calculations is that,

(1)For slow runner, always concentrate on reaching a 180 stride/min.
You can do this by counting how many times you right foot touches
the ground in a minute. Try to make it to be 90 or more.


(2)For fast runner, the way to run faster is always leg strength
training, like hill, speed work, etc.


BUT AS ALWAYS, THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN HOW TO RUN FAST IS TO RUN FAST.

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Crank on.