Stride Rate For Runners, Plus Week Four Of The @runningproject 10km Training Plan

runningproject (57)in #runningproject • 7 years ago

Welcome to Week 4 of our 10km Training Plan. We've been starting off each of our posts going into further details on the Jack Daniels Run Formula and how we can encorporate it with our training and for this week we will take a deep dive into running stride rate and how it can effect your running performance.

If your interested in our previous posts, you'll be able to find them here:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3

Stride Rate

As an excercise, Daniels and his wife spend every day of the 1984 Olympics counting different runners stride frequency. They examined runners from all distance running events from the 800m to the marathon including all men and women to try and see if there was any correlation between their speed and the number of times their feet hit the ground.

Out of all the runners they measured only one took less than 180 steps, with many of the 800m and 1500m runners running over 200 steps per minute. Once the longer distance races were measured, over 3000m through to the marathon, it was found the rate was moving closer to 180 steps per minute again.

Why Is Your Strike Rate So Important

By now you may be wondering what the importance of your foot strike is with regards to your running. What Daniels' has found is that the closer you stick to the 180 steps per minute goal you are able to minimize the landing shock associated with running. Basically the slower your leg turnover is, the more time you are spending in the air. The more time you spend in the air is a direct result of having to hit the ground harder, which then leads to injuries to occur.

As a guide to improve your running, you need to think of yourself as rolling over the ground instead of bounding from foot to foot. Try to have your feet landing closer to your body center of gravity is, to try and get your body to be floating or rolling over your feet.

So What About Foot Strike?

So we've discussed the number of times your feet are hitting the ground, but what about which part of the foot is hitting the ground. The interesting thing to note is that Daniels' does not have a strong opinion on what foot strike method is the best to use although he does state that a runner should use what is comfortable to them.

Summing It Up

The basic aim is to try to aim for 180 steps per minute when running and learn to role over the ground with as little effort as possible, while trying to make your running enjoyable and injury free. Daniels specifically states that when trying to encourage people to run this way you should encourage a runner to:
"imagine they are running over a field of raw eggs and their goal is to not break any of them; be light on your feet and comfortable in your landing."

So without further delay, we will now get back to our next week of our 10km training plan.

Final Week Of Phase 3

We are now into the fourth week of our 10km training plan and this brings us to the last week of phase 3. As you might remember phase three is where we put in a bulk of our hard work and it you've been playing along you should be starting to be more confortable on your longer runs and hopefully feeling stronger in your Repeat and Threshold sessions. You'll notice our second quality session will increase in the duration of the repeats with less recovery.

Beginner 10km Plan - Week 4(19.9km Total)

Quality Session Day 1
7km run at approx 7 minutes 20 seconds per kilometer(11 minutes 40 seconds per mile).

Quality Session Day 2
(6.5km Total)
1km warm up at an easy pace
5 x 600 meter Repeats at 2 minute and 19 seconds per repeat, with 400 meters easy jog to recover
500m light jog as a cool down

Quality Session Day 3
(6.4km Total)
1km Warm up at an easy pace
4 x 800 Threshold runs at 6 minute and 32 seconds per kilometer pace and jog for 400 meters after each repeat.
600m cool down at an easy pace

Intermediate 10km Plan - Week 4(26.5km Total)

Quality Session Day 1
10km run at approx 6 minutes 40 seconds per kilometre(10 minutes 45 seconds per mile).

Quality Session Day 2
(7.5km Total)
1km warm up at an easy pace
6 x 600 meter Repeats at 1 minute and 57 seconds per repeat, with 400 meters easy jog to recover
500m light jog as a cool down

Quality Session Day 3
(9km Total)
1km Warm up at an easy pace
6 x 800 Threshold runs at 5 minute and 33 seconds per kilometer pace and jog for 400 meters after each repeat.
800m cool down at an easy pace

Note:
Don't be afraid to take a break during your long run at the start of the week. If you are feeling preasure to run the full distance non stop, maybe plan one or two water breaks during the run.
These will be your biggest weeks of training so don't feel pressure to do extra training, but if you are feeling good you could repeat this weeks Quality Session Day 1 or perform some cross training for 30 to 50 minutes.

Paces taken from the Jack Daniels Running Caluclator at:
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/

Beginner Plan

This is for someone aiming to finish between 1 hour and an 1 hour and 10 minutes. This person should still have some running behind them and hopefully able to complete a 5km run without stopping.

Intermediate Training Plan

This is for someone who has been constantly running for more about 6 months and aiming to finish a 10km run in between 50 minutes and 1 hour. They should hopefully have run one or two 10km races and should be able to run 10km without stopping.

For our next post we are going to discuss Jack Daniels Basic Laws of Running before we then start on phase 4 of our training plan.

Now over two years ago, a pic of me running Ironman New Zealand

About the Author
Hey I'm Vince, an Aussie living in New Zealand, trying my best to make the most of the time I have. I work as a Software Engineer but love to run and all aspects of it, including geeking out on the latest science to help get the most out of my body.