Cadence

When you think of 180 you might be like me and think of the dart scoring guy bellowing it out as a pro fires three darts straight into the treble twenty. Well in running terms 180 is often seen as a key number when you consider the term cadence. Today I set myself the target of running with a cadence of 180 during my long run, well during the second half of my run. I thought I'd blog about how you might increase your cadence and why it might be beneficial.

Cadence 

If you're fairly new to running your first question might be...Why is there a dart-board image on a running blog? Your second might be..What is cadence? 

Cadence in running terms is about the number of times your feet hit the floor when you're out and about working hard, specifically in a minute. It is quite common to find elite athletes with a cadence of 180 or higher. If you're ever lucky enough to see a live elite race take a look at how many times an athlete's left foot hits the ground in 12 seconds. Double it and multiply it by 5. That will give you an idea of their cadence.

I said 12 seconds as you will have zero chance of seeing them for a full minute in a road race. I guess you could do it on a track race? Anyway I digress. Most elite athletes have a cadence of 180 or better and will have a much longer stride length than us mere mortals. The idea is that a quicker cadence allows you feet to contact the ground for less time on each landing, therefore the breaks are not on for long.

Heel strike example

When I completed my first 5km 3 years ago I looked at the photos and noticed that I too looked like the lady above (much less hair and was carrying a bit more weight. Oh and I had some running tights on with no shorts. What was I thinking!) 

After a bit of research I found out I was a heel striker. My heel hit the ground (causing breaking) and then the whole foot would contact the ground. This meant that every hit of the ground would be slowing me down and making my runs even harder. Further research also indicated that the heavy heel landing was also putting me at a greater risk of injury. 

I didn't do anything about it until I suffered from IT band syndrome. (Basically a long tendon running from your bum cheek down the side of you thigh and attaches near your knee. The muscle at the top got tight so pulled the IT band. The IT band then rubbed on bone at the side of the knee and caused great pain and no chance of running.)

Once I suffered from this I started to think about running technique. Plenty of Youtube research brought me lots of ideas. I recommend the following two videos to support your work on technique if this is something you want to work on: Video 1 Video 2 

Video 1 looks at the pull of your feet and supports the idea of decreasing the amount of contact with the floor. It also has some good drills.

Video 2 focuses on landing and reinforces the idea I raised about heel striking. The man in the vid does a much better explanation than me so I hope it is useful.

Since I worked on my technique I have been lucky in terms of being injury free: 2 injuries in 3 years. I've had a calf issue from playing five-a-side football (which I no longer do!) and IT band syndrome again which was a result of worn trainers. I don't want to bore you with these details but it's important to consider the impact of an injury on your training. An injury normally stops us putting in the training hours so has quite a big impact on progress. Injury free = more time to run. Simples!

After working on technique I carried on training hard and entering events. My times kept getting better and things were all good. However, I'm not someone who is happy settling for something as I like a fresh challenge. Further reading and research brought me to the term 'cadence.' After viewing various videos it was clear that higher cadence usually meant the runner used less energy and made things look easy. I liked the idea of that. As mentioned earlier, it also meant runners made less impact on their bodies so reduced the risk of injury.

Over time my cadence has steadily improved and I feel that this gradual approach is important:
Late 2015 my cadence was around 154. Throughout 2016 I pushed it up to 168 ish by working on technique. I then plateaued around 170 recently.

My suggestion to push yourself further and get up to 180
Step 1: To take my cadence up further I installed a simple metronome app (MetroTimer) on my phone. During my long run I ran out for 5 miles (as I would normally) and really focused on how my body felt: Where the aches were, what was my breathing like and which muscles felt like they had worked hard.
Step 2: I then switch on the metronome app and the beeps began. I found the jump from 170 to 180 really does push you. I soon began increasing the steps whilst maintaining the same speed. I found it really useful to just focus on my left foot hitting every other beat and before long I had the speed of counting 1-2-3-4 to the 180 tempo.

MetroTimer

Step 3: Turn the metronome off and rely on your counting "1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4...."

Step 4: Turn the metronome back on and see if you have maintained the tempo

Step 5: Metronome back off and get your counting going. Then count how many times your left leg hits the floor in a minute and double the total. There's your cadence. I managed to maintain 178 for the rest of my run and also keep my speed exactly the same. I did three checks during the last 5 miles of my run and all three were 178.

Step 6: Again, at the end of your run think about how your body feels, particularly your muscles. I noticed a real decline in muscle tension and aches. It might have been because I was fully warmed up at that time but I'd like to think that the improved cadence was the real reason. 

If you've been running for a few weeks, months or years I'd definitely recommend looking into running technique. If your brave enough, do what I did: Start off by getting on the treadmill and film yourself running. It made very entertaining viewing for me! 

Good luck with it and feel free to drop me a comment to share your thoughts or progress.