Strides

I've added strides to my runs the last couple of weeks, based on Jack Daniels' advice. Strides are "20- to 30-second runs at comfortably-fast pace using light, quick turnover," or (if you're later in your base-building phase), "20- to 30-second runs with 1-minute rests at about mile race pace," according to Daniels.

I found an even better description of strides in this coolrunning post by KudzuRunner:

One way of thinking about strides is as those showoffy spurts that runners put on for other runners in the 7-10 minutes before any road race--racing away from the line for 10-15 seconds, then petering to a stop, slowly wheeling around. Those are strides.

The best time to introduce them into your menu of runs is NOT on race day, but several times a week in the several months before race day. But that's pretty much what they look like.

The key, I've found, is to warm slowly into them. Let's say that my 5K race pace is 6:20 and my half marathon pace is 7:00. (As they are, pretty much.) I'm going to run my first stride of the day no faster than HM pace. The second, with the same effort, is going to come in close to 10K pace. The third, same effort, will smoothly approach 5K pace. At that point, on my fourth, I can smoothly--and the operative word is "smoothly"--accelerate to 6:00 pace and below.

That's where I want to be running my strides, given my race paces--sub-6:00--but if I started there, on the very first one, I'd almost certainly feel clunky. The whole point of strides is to consolidate your stride. They should leave you feeling completely in control at whatever pace you run them. Over time, if you do them several times a week, you can begin to test your limits.

I run strides of up to 30 seconds, BTW. They're supposed to be alactic--no oxygen debt incurred--and it's hard to run fast much beyond 30 seconds, I've found, without doing that.

The point of strides is to improve running economy at higher speeds, and to prepare your body for the next phase of training. For me, the next phase of training will involve a lot of repetition work, but more on that later...

I had a good run today, 6 miles at just under 8-minute pace. That's a bit fast for me on my 'easy' runs. It was sunny and just about perfect at 63 degrees. I did six strides, widely spaced out for full recovery, and they felt pretty good, but not great. Both my left quad and left achilles tendon are a bit sore right now.

The most interesting thing I saw on the run today was a dad with a baby stroller, pulled over at the side of the bike path by a cop, who appeared to be writing him a ticket! I have no idea if he was in trouble for anything, but I had to laugh because that's just what it looked like.

This weekend I'm off to Moab, Utah. I'm not going to run the spectacular Canyonlands Half Marathon, as you might suspect. Instead, I'll be mountain biking. It should be great fun, as always.