Am I training less if I have a longer stride?

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not_fit

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Hello, I've been running a whopping five weeks. My first 5k is in a week. I can almost run the whole thing, but not yet. I have to rest about 7% of the total, ten minutes total, as best I can tell.


Am I doing "bad" or "less" with a longer stride? I prefer the longer stride. It feels better to me, but feels like I'm doing less work than a short stride.

Thanks for any help.

If interested,

I was hoping for wisdom. When I started my stride was very short, quicker cadence?. My heartrate gets to about 150 (I'm over 40.) As I got better at running or at least getting more comfortable, I started using my knees or maybe I should say lifting my knees more. I don't know. All I know is that my stride gets longer, more relaxed in the calves, shins, etc.

But, as my stride lengthened, I had to turn up the speed on the treadmill to about 5.4mph from 4.xmph with the shorter stride. If I tried to match the speed of 5.4 with a short stride, its crazy fast. I can only do the longer stride with the faster speed.

Ok. I feel like I'm doing less work with the longer stride. It's still hard. I believe my heart rate was lower, 136+, maybe more, but I still felt like my running was "easier" somehow.

Am I doing "bad" or "less" with a longer stride? I prefer the longer stride. It feels better to me
 
Yes and no.

The longer stride is a more efficient way to do higher speed work. Likewise, the shorter stride is a more efficient way to do lower speed work. You can run so slow that you may as well be walking, and when you do that, walking is easier. Likewise you can walk so fast that you may as well be running, and when you do that, running is easier.

I recommend walking and running in the way that's most suited to the speed you're moving at. Let the speed, distance and duration take care of energy expenditure.
 
I am a natural distance runner so understand the truth of what goldfish is saying and can add a bit to it.
Consider stride length like gears on a car, shorter are great for acceleration, like low gears but fall short on higher speeds. Longer strides are useless for acceleration, why I suck at sprinting, but better for maintaining balance at higher speeds and therefore more efficient.
Bipedal motion has often been referred to as falling under control, because it is literally pushing your body forward as if falling then catching yourself on the other foot. The more often you land the more unbalanced you become. The recovery from this is where you waste most of your energy, hence long stride efficiency for distance.
Lifting the knees. Please be careful with this, especially when using long strides. Remember you aren't running upwards, you are running forward. If you are lifting your feet too far off the ground you are generating more impact when you land and wasting energy by pummelling the earth. On treadmills or road you want your feet to be as close to the ground as possible at the forward part of your stride, off road as little lift as you can manage without tripping. I went from off road to on and keeping closer to the ground reduced impact soreness while increasing efficiency and therefore speed so shifting focus from knees up to driving forward could potentially give you that extra 7% and if not all of it at least some.

My stride is artificially long, I have forced it to be so, but by keeping an eye on technique I have avoided any injuries from running even though I am 1.5 times my ideal running weight. You aren't training less and it certainly isn't bad. All it will mean is you end up running further in the same amount of time or aiming for higher distances.
Heart rate is one of many intensity measures and it is a useful guide, but there are many others so don't rely on this totally. I am 40 and ran marathons in my late teens, my heart rate during running hasn't changed at all. It used to be around 180 before and still is. Perceived rate of exertion is a good system.
 
That's good. As you may find if you see some of my other posts on running the 'get those knees' up idea is one of my pet hates.
What you are doing is good.
 
I think in that question are several related concepts such as our efficience running, our energy consumption, and so on.

I would say I prefer to run with a longer stride because it seems to me to be more natural, from the point of view of performance, because when we run with a longer stride we run more confidently and with a more elegant momentum than with a shorter stride.

Apart from be more efficient that makes us to run more gently too and develop a better system of running that makes us efficient as I said, to consume less calories and to run further and more intense in the other hand.


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​Daniel Fernández
FIT-Repetition (FIT-R)
danielfernandez.eu/
 

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Stride length

For every person there is a perfect ratio of stride length to cadence (rate of steps). Most people will not fine tune this ratio unless they are an elite runner but everyone should keep it as a goal to constantly be aware of his or her stride to step ratio. The majority of people have issues with not having a high enough cadence. I'm not going to throw out numbers on what your ratio should be but if you're looking for efficiency then try pitching your balance far enough forward so it feels like you are going to fall forward then run just fast enough to keep yourself from falling. Your speed will then be controlled by your pitch.
 
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