Birkierunner's group - ROUND 2 - CLOSED (Page 4)

Hello Jim!

Today I had me long run, and since it is my recovery week it was't that long I am in the process of increasing my cadence and I see already that my pace is faster then with lower cadence (assuming the heart rate is the same of course).

This could be a question for the discussion - do you care about your running cadence? What do you do to improve it?  Do you use metronome? I do and I feel like Jack Bauer in "24" hearing the ticking sound all time in my head

And I have big plan of resting tomorrow

Cheers,

Marcin 

We must also remember, thet there is minimal body fat required to remain healty and avoid injures. It's about 5% for men and 12% for woman. It has something to do with fat covering our internal body parts. Interesting article about it can be found at About.com (it's not scientific report but I find it intersting anyway).

Cheers,

Marcin Mieszek

Nice job on the run today, Marcin! Good plan on taking a rest day too

Daniels has a good section on running cadence in the first edition of his book.  He studied video footage of a lot of elite distance runners and found that many of them had a cadence right around 90 per minute (meaning your right foot strikes the ground 90 times each min).  He found that beginners tend to have much lower cadences - around 80 per minute. 

Daniels' feels that the main problem with low cadence is that "the slower you take steps, the longer the time you spend in the air, and the more time you are in the air, the higher you displace your body mass and the harder you hit the ground on landing.  When you consider that many running injuries are the result of landing shock, it is not surprising that experienced runners tend to turn over faster than do individuals who are new to the sport."   Note that he doesn't say here that slower cadences makes you a slower runner...he is focusing on the injury aspect with regard to inexperienced runners.

He goes on to say that several studies have been conducted on the energy demands of different stride cadences.  Those studies found that experienced runners are most efficient at their chosen rate of turnover, whether it be faster or slower cadence.  When it comes to inexperienced runners, running economy can often be improved by getting low cadence runners to increase their cadence.

I was a runner for 28 years and NEVER, EVER had a clue what my cadence was - didn't care either.  I started reading some triathlon articles 2 summers ago that said that if you strive to race your Ironman bike at 90 rpm, you should strive to achieve a run cadence around 90/min.  So, I measure my cadence on a few runs and always came up with about 84.  Did I decide to change it?  NOPE.  I'm happy where I'm at and I think I've done pretty well with a lower cadence. 

If you are a newcomer to running it is possible that there is room for improving your running efficiency.  Perhaps increasing your cadence can help out, maybe not.  You are an experiment with sample size of 1      By the way, if you don't have a copy of Daniels' Running Formula I would highly recommend it.  I bought the first edition back in 2004 and liked it so much I bought the second edition when it came out a while back.  Pete Pfitzinger has also written some good running books, but he was a student of Daniels, so you might as well get it straight from the horses mouth

So, everyone measure their cadence on their next run and we can compare!

Nice job on the run, Todd.  Our paces for our runs were pretty similar this weekend.  I'm so glad Grandmas got with the program and went with online registration finally.  I'm only doing the half again this year so that I can compare it to last year as a fitness check.  But, I plan on racing it this year rather than just use it as a workout like I did last year. I absolutely love that course (full and half).  Hopefully I'll get picked in the lottery.

Folks, I hop on a plane in a couple hours for a meeting in Kentucky. Not sure what my Internet situation will be like in the evenings but feel free to post questions or just chat and I'll catch up with you when I can.  (I turn 47 years young today!)

YEAH! Happy Birthday  

I did my first 20 miler this weekend......

opiejoe - 2008-01-15 6:47 AM I had my first session with my swim coach last night. She made a few adjustments-WOW !!!! I actually felt like I was swimming with some small sliver of form !! I am very excited & should have sought proffesional help months ago. She said that if I keep swimming 2-3 times a week that I might not drown at Florida 70.3

better late than never - you'll be a fish in no time!

The goal of this week to me is to perform running and swimming tests so that I could track my progress. Today I head running seesion on track with a 5 km test (the time is around 25 minutes whish is ok for me) and I am really exhausted... Tomorrow I'm having 400 m test in the pool.

What are you doing this week? Do you have plans for the weekend?

Cheers,

Marcin 

Hi Marcin.  Do you have a coach that has instructed you to do a 400 m swim test?  Most articles that I have read on conducting swim fitness tests for determing your training zones recommend a 1000 m time trial.  A 400 m  test might be a little too short and wouldn't expose any shortcomings in your fitness at longer distances.  Mike Ricci wrote an article on setting up training zones, although you might have to be a Performance member to access it.  Be sure to do a proper warmup prior to the test (300-500 m).

I get back from my biz trip tomorrow and I'm hoping to get another long ski in on Saturday. The high temp is supposed to be only minus 6 F ....yikes.

Hi Jim, hope you had a nice trip overall.  Congrats on the marathon!  Only 9 minutes off of your goal is still pretty darn good for a marathon.  How were the weather conditions?  If it was hot and humid it would be pretty tough to run a fast marathon.  Looking forward to your race report. Rest up and recover

Hello Jim! Thank you for your comment - whatever the subject is, you can provide dozens on useful information about it!

I appreciate your opinions each time, thank you  

The test was suggested by the coach, it includes proper warmup and 8 X 100 m intervals. The distance was chosen probably because I am a beginner swimmer, so 400 m is a long distance to me. But I will ask the coach - I trust in what he does and he answers all the questions I have.

Regards,

Marcin 

One thing you might want to try is that when you push off from the wall on the turn, do so with your entire foot rather than just your toes.  I find towards the end of a workout that when I push off with just my toes or the ball of my foot, that will trigger cramps.  Let us know if that helps. Good luck

Great news on the swim progress Rick - keep plugging away!

Saddle - Fizik Arione Tri saddle (with silver flex wing), absolutely love it

Bike shoes - Shimano 06 TR02 carbon tri (replaced by the SH-TR50)

Run training shoes - New Balance 1220 (I think I'm on pair #21 of these), tried the newer 1223 but don't like them as much as the 1220

Racing shoes - New Balance 901 (fitted with Easy Laces)

Ummm saddles- STILL having a hard time with this- did a bike seat fitting and ended up with a mens Terry Falcon.   Not going to be doing 112 on that

Running shoes- Asics Kayno...although I am going to try a pair of the new zoot running shoes- hopefully use those for racing.

Bike shoes- sidi T2s-  I like these