Summer Speed

Just saw this on the RunTex web site. Good info.

Summer Speed: Think Strides After Every Run
by Wish, 5/3/2007

Summer’s almost here and pretty soon it’s going to kick in with day after day of disgustingly hot, humid weather. It sucks for running, but that’s not going to stop us. We’ll drink more, run earlier or later and go easier and shorter.

But we’ll keep running through the worst of the Central Texas steambath. You probably aren’t going to want to do 20-milers this summer and you might modify some of your other hard workouts, but what you shouldn’t give up on entirely during the summer is some sort of speed.

That isn’t to suggest you still have to do hard, hot and huge sets of track workouts, but by doing just a little fast running after you finish your normal workout can allow you to maintain some of your leg speed over the course of the summer so you don’t have to start all over again from scratch building your speed in the fall.

Summer speed isn’t really a workout as much as it is simply making strides a regular part of your routine. Undoubtedly, you’ve either heard about the value of strides or perhaps seen one of the Gazelle groups doing short sprints after their workouts on the Auditorium Shores grass.

Most runners do strides but typically do 50 to 100-meter pickups as a way to warm up for speedwork or races. Doing strides as part of a warm up, is the best way to ease gently into faster running. By briefly simulating race pace or just fast running by doing a few strides, you get the mind and body ready to run or race fast.

All well and good, but you should also consider doing 5-10 strides after your daily summer workouts. It won't take long. Spending a few minutes a day by doing strides, will pay dividends in holding onto your quick running form. In addition, a few strides every day will break up the monotony of summer slug runs and reinforce the notion that you can still run fast.

Summer strides are also a great way to sneak in a little speedwork for runners without spending an entire workout doing it.

Strides are easy to do, but you need to do them consistently. Don’t even think about whether you should do them or not or you’re too tired or hot. After finishing a run, just launch into a minimum of five strides and a maximum of 10 after your daily run.

Here’s how:

1. Do strides right away. After finishing your run, do your strides immediately—before you cool down, stretch or chill with a cold drink. Don't give yourself an out. Just do them automatically.
2. Try to finish your run on a flat, straight stretch of road or trail where you can do your strides without any traffic. Auditorium Shores is a good spot to do strides. So is Austin High where you can just do your strides on the track or on the grass. Avoid hills for your strides.
3. Increase your speed gradually. When you begin a stride, accelerate to top speed (maybe 75-80 percent of sprint speed) for the first third of the run, hold that top speed for the next third and for the final third of the stride, decelerate gradually.
4. Recover. A typical stride should take about 30-45 seconds so you should do a jog recovery (or walk) for about that length of time before launching into the next one. If you’re still winded, lengthen the recovery.
5. Stride back After recovering, simply stride back in the opposite direction for about the same distance.
6. Forget the watch. Don’t worry about timing the strides. IYour time doesn’t really matter. Nor is the exact distance important. The effort and the ability to hold onto that top-speed form is what counts.
7. Think quick leg turnover. Emphasize quick legs and arms. Focus on running tall and even.. .