In Search of Lost Speed

Like most runners, I've slowed; first gradually, then precipitately. In your forties, you have those moments when you feel 20 again and have an occasional run that's unusually fast - followed by weeks of aches and slow jogging. In my fifties, I've hit the point where I have what feels like a great run, much faster than usual, then look at my watch and discover that it was as much as two minutes per mile slower than thought.

Losing speed, runners often move up in distance raced, but once you've hit 100 miles, there's not much further one can go that route. What surprised me most was that I couldn't even momentarily run as fast as I used to, the days of peak speeds of 2:38 per mile (not a typo) being replaced with peaks closer to 5 minutes per mile.

There's two possibilities: stride rate and stride length. Looking at Jack Daniels' book (2nd edition), next to where he says that most runners have a stride rate (actually step rate... two steps per stride) of 160, top runners are at 180, I had written that my sprint rate was 195, but slowed to under 160 when jogging. My watch will tell me my cadence and it's been consistently under 150 recently. By working on stride rate, I have been able to recoup some of that lost speed in the past weeks.

It's been noted among aging sprinters, however, that stride rates don't change much, but runners take more steps to do their runs, so their stride length has shortened. One old runner has said that he occasionally does runs with short choppy strides at a rate of 220! I checked - running in place, I can do a minute at 208 steps per minute, so that's not really the issue.

Increasing flexibility and range of motion seem to be the usual way runners try to increase stride length, but over-striding is inefficient and their must be another way. Brad Hudson points to "stride stiffness," the amount of recoil one gets in each step, not absorbing the shock of each foot landing. A part of this in ankle flexion and forcefully pushing off each foot in a pawing motion. Another part comes from leg drive, raising the knees higher, which seems to force the body to push off harder with the glutes. Doing drills - high knees, ankle hops, etc. - are how people work on this, but I see a fault. One can lift the knees high and push off hard at the ankle, but go straight up, rather than forward (in fact, this is what the drills have one do) and it's forward push that matters. Ideally, pushing a football tackling dummy would be the way to increase forward power, but that doesn't seem a good fit for runners.

Uphill sprinting is a favored way to do this, as it causes one to lift the knees while running fast. This still doesn't quite work for me, though, as one can sprint uphill barely raising the knees with short strides. Climbing steps 2 or 3 at a time seems a better way to do it, especially if one can do them fast.

This is what I plan to do now.

Except... it looks like I've broken my leg!