Stride length!

 

I belong to a “runners over 70 group” on Facebook and enjoy interacting with other aged runners. Lots of dudes like me who have gone from 9mph runs in their hay day  to 5mph runs on a brisk day. One discussion chain was about stride length and the fact that the average stride length for a 70-79 aged runner is a pathetic 25” inches. Now, even when I ran all those sub 6 minute mile pace 5k’s in my 30’s, I never had a long stride length, especially for a guy of 6’3”. Now with my size 13 feet, 25 inches is a really sad state of affairs! These days, I look down often during runs and notice 2 things….I never seem to be in the air, and my right foot, as a result of being hit by that truck at age 58 and fracturing the inside of my knee and both sides of my ankle, causes my foot to land toe’d out a bit. Makes my right shoe on the outer mid foot also wear faster. Also, in some shoes, especially ones with higher drops, I feel like I’m slapping the ground. 60 mile weeks are now 20 mile weeks with some days in the gym on the Exercycle. Like most of my buds in the group say, it ain’t pretty but it beats quitting ….