Back To The Grind

My week after vacation was pretty good, it was even nicer bc we had a four day week bc of the 4th. 

Workout wise, I did well, not great, but well. Since I skipped my running while I was at the beach, I felt VERY rusty this week. Julie and I did two sessions of yoga, I did one strength training session, two two mile runs and I FINALLY did the drill that my coach wanted me to do. My two miler wasn't fantastic, I'm still trying to get to my goal of twenty three minutes. 

This is the step drill per my coach Lou Ann at Off To Run Personal Training :

Try this cadence drill to correct over stride and keep feet low to the ground: 

The Research: Studies have clearly shown that as runners become faster, their stride length 

decreases. Therefore, the way to get faster is to increase turnover of feet and legs. Even those 

who lack a fast bone in their bodies will benefit from turnover drills because they teach the 

body to find a more efficient motion. 

The Drill: after a slow mile warm-up, select a level and traffic-free stretch of road, trail or track. 

Without picking up your speed, count the number of times your feet come down in 30 seconds. 

Walk for a minute or so and start counting again, with the goal of increasing the count by one 

or two. Repeat this four to six times, with the same projected increase each time but without a 

significant increase in effort. 90 foot strikes in 30 seconds is optimal if you count both feet.

How often? If you do this drill once a week, you'll intuitively learn to stay low to the ground 

with an increasingly lighter touch of the foot. You'll see more progress when doing it twice. But 

you'll lose two weeks of progress if you miss a week. 

Tip: set your timer to 30 sec/1:00 minute to do this drill. 

Turnover simply means the number of times your feet push off during each minute of running. 

Most runners get locked into a cadence that feels comfortable. Unfortunately, if you don't work 

to speed up your turnover (180 footstrikes per minute (90 each foot) is considered optimal), 

that rhythm will slow down as you age. But by doing the simple drill described above, you can 

reverse this process and gradually increase your running cadence.

I went four times and got 90, 94, 96 and 94. Hopefully, I'll improve next week! I can't believe the Manchester Half is only four months away! 

For the 4th, we had our friends over for a cookout. We had burgers, dogs, brats, corn on the cob and it was all delicious. We didn't go to the fireworks, bc we are always worried about our dogs. Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th!