Friday Frollicking

After a suitably merry Thursday night I bounded out of bed aware that I had promised Maya a bike ride before going to work. I'd also a run to do. First full session of 10min easy, 10 moderate, 10 hard and 10 easy to finish with.

Bit of a pondery on the speeds so I settled with a 6mph,8mph,10mph,6mph. As usual on the easy I really struggled to get the cadence up but by the half way mark I was pushing 90. One quiet weird thing was that instead of counting right foot strikes I counted left foot strikes. It was firstly quite difficult to do and secondly somehow subtly changed my stride. Usually my right foot is very dominant, but by counting off my left I changed the dominance pattern and the rhythm of my stride altered.

After a while on moderate my stride rate had climbed up to about 100 and I sat there letting my legs turn over fast. It's a lot harder on the cardiovascular system than running slowly and takes mental effort to maintain but I've yet to really feel uncomfortable or tired doing it. Not that I'm running far - :)

When I stepped up to 10mph I was in a quandry as to whether to let it run for the whole ten minutes, step up the speed again straight away or compromise. It didn't seem that fast but I wasn't sure about how I would feel at the end. In fact I upped the speed to 11 at the half way point and found it all pretty comfortable. Slightly down from hard. so I'll need to up the speed next week. The other thing that I noticed with the high stride rate was that I was naturally leaning forward - almost falling which is what they talk about in Chi Running. Interesting and something to watch and understand.

I've also noted that since I've started running barefoot I have shifted very much to a mid foot or a forefoot landing as opposed to the heel strike I've always had. I'm not sure what all these bio-mechanical changes mean but I guess we'll find out over the months ahead.

Didn't worry too much about the cadence on the cool down as had realised that the bike I'd promised to take Maya out on was still at work. So off the treadmill, 8 minute run to work, cycle back, 20 minute cycle down to Flora Damansara and back. Good start to the day