today, a beautiful day

You ever have those runs where everything just clicks? That was today for me.  

A cold, but very sunny day, I was looking forward to today's run. I decided to give myself yesterday off instead of today because my calves felt really tight, so my mind got the better of me -- but lesson learned, I listened to my body and rested instead.

Started my ipod with the Beautiful Day by U2 genius playlist I created and started with a brisk pace walk to cross the street before starting to run.  Happy to feel no tightness or pain in my bones (i'm still super sensitive to feeling anything in my bones), I got lost in my thoughts; but I can't even remember what I was thinking about! I know a few people gave me some funny looks as my breath created a large cloud with every exhale, but otherwise, I was just chuggin' along.

When I had the meeting with one of the chiropractor's months ago after my second gait analysis, and when I was first introduced to the Pose method of running, I was told that I should aim to have a running cadence of 90 rpm.  How many foot steps per minute.  To be fair, I ran quite a bit different on the treadmill than when running outside, and the speed of the treadmill was at about 5.5 mph, so I certainly wasn't going fast.  But my cadence then was in the low 70's.  Ouch.

Since I was such a pronounced heel-striker, and landing ahead of my body, I would roll from heel to toe along the ground, and have to let my body catch up to where my leg was -- out in front of me. Since I spent so much time on the ground, and landing ahead of my body, I was essentially applying the breaks with each step, and slowing down the number of times I could make contact with the ground.

This whole process of re-learning how to run has been enlightening.  I'm not sure if I'm doing the Pose method correctly, and will be meeting with the Pose instructor in the new year, but I have been really trying to be more aware and conscious.

So, having said that, remember the ideal cadence suggested is 90 rpm. When I first bought my Garmin, I ran indoors on the treadmill as well, so I purchased the footpod accessory.  It wasn't until recently (duh!) that I thought about using it outdoors as well to track my cadence.  Beats trying to count my steps and checking the time, I can't even take my own pulse without a gadget!  I get confused and lose track! (Thank gawd for technology!) LOL

So last week, I put the footpod onto my brand new shoes that I won from Runners' Lounge.  I also added cadence as one of the display fields on my Garmin.  So I've had this available to me for all of my runs so far this week, Tuesday, Wednesday and today.  Are you ready to see the results? Are you?  Drum roll Please...

Not sure if you can see it, Blogger isn't letting me put in the large image size so I'm having to settle for medium, but if you look all the way to the right, my average cadence is 91, which includes where my cadence totally drops when I'm walking around a bit waiting for a traffic light to change, which happened twice.  I figure even if I'm not doing the Pose method exactly right, I must be at least going in the right direction towards something resembling better running!  The neat thing about this lately is that I feel like it's natural, nothing is forced.  My runs have all been fairly consistent lately with pace, so it's almost like this cadence thing has helped me find my comfort pace, something that feels good.

This comfort pace, ironically, is what I used to consider my fast runs and were few and far between... so it makes sense that I'm much more efficient with shorter and quicker steps than long, heel-striking, rolling forward steps!  My breathing is much easier because even though I'm going faster, my body is not working as hard.  It was one of those A-ha moments.

I had planned a 7k route, and ran it all except for the few seconds at 2 different traffic lights.  I felt amazing today, like I could continue all day long, but having to teach fairly soon, I turned onto my street, slowed down the pace to start cooling down, and Today by the Smashing Pumpkins started playing...  

So from start to finish, Today is a Beautiful Day.  Glad I was able to enjoy it with what felt like a perfect run. :)

Good luck to all those racing this weekend, looking forward to the race reports!  Have a great weekend.