The house of sniffles and coughs

So uh, I wasn’t able to kick that hill’s arse yesterday, instead I’ve been dealing with the crummy cold that my husband and daughter have had for nearly a week. I’m following my “neck rule” and since whatever this is has settled in my chest, I’m skipping the running for a few days. So if you are not sick or/freezing (it’s 38 for the high here today and my acclimated southern bones cannot deal with it), I will offer up a new running challenge for the day.

Many people assume that to run faster you need to increase your stride length. In truth, many studies have shown that elite runners all have something in common and it isn’t stride length, it’s footstrikes. These runners’ cadence is about 180-190 (or 85-90 per foot) footstrikes per minute. The more efficiently you can turn over your feet, the faster you run. So your challenge is to see where you are. Time yourself for 10 seconds, just count footstrikes on one leg since that’s easier, and see how close you are to the 85-95 number. Now see if you can achieve the ideal cadence of 95 by doing 30 footstrikes in 19 seconds. You can also do this drill as a speed workout.

Now as I sit here freezing at least one part of me is warm, my feet. I hate having cold feet and a couple of years ago I got these down booties. Yes, they are terribly ugly but they are also incredibly warm and they are great for long flights because you can smoosh them and throw them in your carry on. So if you’d rather have warm feet than tragically hip ones, get yourself some of these.

Something for your holiday mix from one of my favorites, Rufus Wainwright. I love all of the Wainwright McGarrigle music, they are what I envision my family would be like if any one of us could play an instrument or sing.