Running with cadence

"Cadence check!"

It's sometime early in the morning, before the sun comes up and the best time to call out "cadence check" is upon hitting a stretch of good streetlights. We count how many times our right foot hits the ground during a 30-second span.

"Stop!"

"48," I tell Sue.

"Me, too," she replies.

And then the run continues with our usual conversation about friends, family and work. Until another cadence check opportunity arises.

Such is the nature of my easy-paced runs. The goal of cadence running is to increase your turnover. The higher your cadence, the faster you will run. And if you do it naturally -- for me this meant shorter steps while staying in my endurance heart rate zone -- you get a bit faster without even thinking about it. The general goal prescribed by my coach is a cadence of 90 or greater. When counting for 30 seconds, that means wanting your right foot to strike the ground 45 times or better. At the beginning of this cadence experiment, I was right at 45. Now I routinely hit 48 and 47.

I'm getting faster.

But I'm also getting stronger.

These days my workouts are in part gearing me up for the Miami Half Marathon in late January. But the workouts are also good base and strength building time, if I allow them to be.

The key point here is allowing the workout to be what the workout is for.

A cadence run is much different than a hilly run. On a cadence run, I'm looking for an easy heart rate zone and high leg turnover. On a hilly run, heart rate and pace don't mean a thing. Instead, the run is about building strength, which will make me faster and increase my fitness in different ways than a flat cadence run will.

It's all about understanding the purpose of the workout and going with that flow.

Not every workout is about speed. Not every workout is about hills and climbing. If I find myself getting too caught up in the math, that's a sign I need to stop. The only math I allow myself to do is count -- including, but not limited to, cadence on a the run and laps in the pool, although quite frankly I lose count in the pool so much there probably is little accurate measure of how far I actually do swim most days.

When I allow myself to be present for each workout, thinking only about that session at hand instead of calculating how it will help me reach my half marathon goal or get me through my next half Ironman swim, the training is not only more enjoyable, it's inherently more productive.

--- Amy Moritz
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