Those are some broad statements

For what it is worth, my wife and I have trained at high levels as runners, training daily, side by side with some Olympian/World Championship level runners. We never talked about stride rate, nor did our coaches. I find it oddly curious that these talks come up from time to time on letsrun and now on here.

My advice is to get out the door and put the training in. I really feel like worrying about stride rate is a big waste of time.

Joe M wrote:

I don't believe your assumption that cadence alone improves running efficiency is accurate (assuming that I read your post correctly).

I don't believe increasing your cadence alone, improves efficiency but I think it is a good start and I think it will speed you up. Too many people, especially MOP and BOP runners over stride, a higher cadence can help (doesn't necessarily solve) over striding.

I have not actually counted the strides of many other people, but those that I have are generally running 8-10 min/miles at 160ish cadence. If they increase their turnover, while slightly shortening their stride (hopefully the over striding part if they do that) then they will go faster and usually without a big increase in HR.

So...wild ass guess from a limited sampling. Got it.

Quote:

Here's a thought: People at the BOP and MOP levels (for the most part) aren't putting in the miles and specific enough training to support running at a faster pace/cadence.

arbitrarily forcing 180 cadence on someone and telling them they have to be at that is more of a recipe for injury than anything

If you tell them to run their 9 minute miles, but every 10 minutes to run 1 minute at an 8 minute pace, they aren't going to suddenly be bounding with greater strides, they are going to increase their cadence to achieve this. If they are at 140 cadence for 9 minute miles, they might be at 150 cadence for 8 minute miles. As they get fitter and faster, now their average pace is 8 minute miles, and average cadence 150. They haven't done anything specific to achieve this, they've just gotten fitter

I think increasing your cadence is one of the most important things a mid to back of the pack runner can do.

The fact elite runners operate at 180 for most aerobic events (>= 3min/km) does not mean that the casual runner running at 6min/km should try to emulate them.

If Cadence is a function of speed... then why is it that if you run on a treadmill and run a cadence of 180 at different "fixed" speeds... the effort levels appear to be very similar.

What I mean, if I try to keep a 180 pace at a VERY slow treadmill speed (almost like almost running in place very fast) vs. a 180 pace at a very fast treadmill speed.... I will almost get as fatiqued at the slower speed... as if the treadmill was at a faster speed. Perhaps because you can not use momentum/falling forward on a treadmill to gain running efficiency at slower speeds? Therefore If the cause is loss of forward momentum is the cause, then is it possible to find a persons optimal cadence by slowly increasing the speed of a treadmill until the difference in percieved effort from a lower speed to a higher speed is negligiable?

I have been mop to bop IM marathoner because of certain recent physical limitations/injury (which seems to have been corrected over the past couple of years)... and this is besides getting old....

Just for the record, my triathlon experience is about 300 or so ID and sprint distance races with about 20 plus 70..3's and 5 IM's scattered over the past 26 or so yrs. Point is... my cadence is and has been always faster for shorter distances... just that to be efficient and to keep fatique at bay, for a marathon distance...it appears I fell into a rut of about 160-ish. and was concidering moving the cadence up but had some doubts about it's incremental value.