This is Debbie Boyles, coach at Mojo for Running with podcast number 27 about cadence. When I say

cadence, I'm referring to the speed of your leg turnover. Most people refer to it as the number

of strides per minute. Have you ever given that any thought? Obviously, if you're in a race,

you probably try to run faster by increasing

your cadence. But beyond that, have you ever thought much about it? About your all-the-time cadence?

It's also often referred to as your stride rate, but no matter what you call it, it's important.

At least it should be to all runners. Amazingly, though, it seems that this

element of running doesn't get much attention, and to me, that doesn't make much sense because

it's a way that every runner can improve. It will improve your form, help to prevent injury,

and increase your speed. That's right. It'll make you faster, a lot faster. It's easy to change, too. That's the thing. It's not like you work on it for months at a time. One or two weeks of working on improving leg turnover can make a huge difference. I'd even go so far as to say it's the most efficient and by that I mean the

quickest way to improve your running performance. Now if that didn't get your attention, I don't

know what will. I found that it's helpful even with beginner runners because increasing leg

turnover tends to improve form in a distinct way that makes any runner more efficient in several ways.

I work on stride rate with even my most beginning beginners. After just a few minutes,

my newest runners look at me with disbelief, saying something like, wow, that's actually

easier. Of course, they didn't expect it to be. No one does. It sounds like it would be more difficult,

but because it involves simultaneously shortening your stride, it's actually easier.

In the last podcast, I talked about running form. Well, this is essentially a continuation of that

podcast because I really would not be able to

separate the two. That's because it's been my experience that when runners work on increasing

their cadence, their form improves drastically. Most runners over stride. In other words, they reach

out too far with their feet. That's generally because they're trying to take

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