Novice Question

[Readandrun]

Good morning everyone. Beautiful weather here for my run. Please excuse the ignorant question but I noticed the NRC app gives my cadence. No idea what this is and whether I should aim to decrease or increase or does it depend on the circumstances??

[nowster Graduate10]

Cadence is how often you take a step when running. Usual numbers are around 150-180 spm (steps per minute). A higher cadence number is often a good thing, as you're taking shorter steps (but more often) which means less stress on your legs.

I could do with increasing my cadence a little. I tend to settle around 160spm naturally.

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate10]

As nowster says, I have a metromone app which I can set from 1 to 300 beats/steps regarding cadence, per min, however, for running I set it at a minimum of 165 spm to a maximum of 180 spm, last year for most of my runs I set it at 175 spm and my average time for a 5K was 33.30, however, stride is important as well, if I had a small stride, even at 175 my 5K time could be 38 minutes, a larger stride could be 31 minutes, still at 175 spm, there was a runner who ran at 150 spm got a sub 25 minute 5K, on another occasion a runner who had ran at 190 spm got a 5K time of 41 minutes, these are two exteme examples of stride but for the most part, the higher the cadence, the faster you will run.

[Readandrun Graduate10 in reply to AlMorr]

Thankyou for the info. I will see if I improve now !

[Tasha99 Graduate10]

Nah forget it. It is what it is. Maybe after a while think about it. Not now. I’m still unsure about it tbh.

[Snail61 Graduate10]

Have you tried running to a beat? The 5K+ podcasts are good for that, speed will have you running intervals between 150 to 165 bpm (spm).