Just Run

After a full day of meetings, work, and teaching, followed by eating and grocery shopping (the most important errand for runners, amirite?) I found myself at a fork (ha!) in the road:

To run… or not to run?

I was starving, so I decided it would be a rest day and that I’d run tomorrow. (Possibly the most overused excuse in the book.)

Instead, I sat down and read about running speed, convincing myself that a small part of me was still… running.

But let’s rewind for a moment - to when I first started running nearly three years ago. Back then, the only goal was finishing one mile. Keep your goals reasonable, they say, and with running, that advice somehow feels both true and wildly misleading.

The first time my feet hit the track, I wasn’t stopping, but I was definitely turtling along. I wasn’t chasing time. When I completed that final loop, I was so surprised I’d finished that I nearly forgot to stop my watch.

Beep.

9:45.

Even more surprising? I felt like I could keep going.

Soon, one mile felt manageable, so I tried two. You can see where this is going.

Eventually, running became routine. Two miles - boom, done. Three or four if I had the time. I was also cross-training and dancing a lot back then. Unlike my high school PE days, I actually enjoyed running.

A few months later, a new question popped up: How fast could I run a mile?

Closely followed by another: How far could I go?

At its core, speed comes down to a simple equation: stride length + cadence. But increasing both at the same time is tricky (and a great way to get injured, from my experience). Overstriding is a common pitfall: reaching too far forward so your foot lands ahead of your center of mass, creating a chain reaction of foot, knee, and hip issues. Plus… it’s just inefficient.

I’m no expert, but from personal experience, cadence is my stronger suit (thank you, years of metronome-based musician training). My stride tends to be on the shorter side, even when sprinting, I might hit 1.2 to 1.3 meters. A cadence around 171–174 feels like a comfortable jog, but holding 180? That’s a whole different beast.

And then there’s the real brain teaser: what if you can hit 180 steps per minute… but you’re still running 8-, 9-, or 10-minute miles?

Food for thought. That’s where the art of training comes in.

Running seems as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.

Or is it?