Cough... cough..

Had a bit of a cold this week, I should have know something was up last weekend - during my run my heartrate was higher than normal and I wasn't just feeling 'right'. Turns out it's a bit of cold, it's been so long since I've had one, I almost forgot what it's like. It wasn't too bad, a couple of restless nights and a stuffed nose - at least the bugger didn't migrate to my lungs.

I erred on the side of caution and ditched two of my runs this week and opted for additonal zzzz's instead. Focus on getting back to 100% health then focus on training. I still did my bike workouts, so I wasn't in 100% slacker mode - just semi-slacker.
The good news is, I had a great sleep last night and was able to get a run and bike workout in today. Hey, if cold only buggers up two runs, I sure the hell won't complain.

As you know, I'm still in a pre-season/base phase. ie: during all workouts, heartrate is not allowed over 145 and is usually kept between 140 - 142. The one thing I have been working on is my run cadence. My natural cadence seems to be dialed in at 88 strides/min (176 steps). The goal is to increased that to 92. In order to do that, every so often during a run, I'll do real quick increase in cadence for 20 to 30 sec. The theory being, that eventually running at 92 strides will feel natural.
Anyway, this got me a thinking. (yea it happens every so often). Increasing cadence from 88 to 92 = 8 an extra 8 steps per minute. Big deal you say. Well extrapolate that over the course of a marathon. 1 step =1.25m (it's propably more), so that's 10 extra meters travelled in 1 minute. For arguments sake, let's say you run a 3 hour marathon. That's 180 minutes, at 10 extra meters/ minute, that's 1800 meters, or 1.8k. A 3 hour marathon requires a 4:16/k pace, so by merely increasing your cadence, in this case you could shave over 7.5 minutes. Points to ponder. Now all I have to do is break that elusive 3 hour barrier for a marathon - something that is at least a year away...

Have a great weekend!