Running is a passion - 7

It has been a month since we got into running. I am sure you started liking the sweet smell of your sweat than those expensive perfumes. If not, we need to talk. If you say you are not sweating much, then we need to definitely talk. That tells me you are not sustaining at >65% of your MHR long enough. Your body muscles are cheating on you.

There is a free iPhone app "LYR Lite" (LogYourRuncom) that keeps track of your training. I always use it when I run outside. It uses iPhone's internal GPS to calculate the distance and speed and will plot graphs to analyze your run. What I like the most about this app is, it lets you save the data on their website for future reference. This way you can track the progress. It also gives you an option to manually add entries from iPhone (or computer) for people training on the treadmill. I am sure this app is available on other smart phones with GPS capability. Get yours today and start tracking. I missed to do this in the beginning (and I negelct to do this even today when I run on a treadmill :( Now, I feel bad because I am unable to quantitatively see my progress since day 1. I suggest to use this app instead of google spreadsheet.

Now that it is a month, I can see how everyone is very eager to increase the speed. Here is an obvious but still interesting math that will help you. Speed is your stride length multiplied by frequency. In other words, one can improve their speed by increasing the length of your stride (wide steps) or frequency of your stride (quick steps). We just have to find our optimum length and frequency. Do this exercise for me, next time you run, gradually increase the speed on the treadmill to a high number and observe (or have someone else observe) what you naturally do, take more strides (covering almost the same distance with each stride) or take longer strides (keeping the number of strides per minute almost the same). I don't think one method is better than the other, so just see what comes to you naturally. Knowing that you can do two things. When you get tired, consciously do what comes to you naturally to get that extra pace. While training at a comfortable pace, work on the other one that is not natural to you. My observation is, I take longer strides (than changing the frequency) to increase speed. So, when I get to mile 12 or so in the race, I will consciously take longer strides to complete the race sooner. When I train, I will do the opposite to improve on my frequency.