I haven't done any speed work since last December. I have just been concentrating on building my mileage back up since my ankle issues. I have changed some things in my form since then and decided to try and work on increasing my cadence instead of straight up speed work. I've never been able to even get close to the recommended 180. I'm not even sure that is practical or even feasible for me because I'm tall and have long legs. Does that cadence change for tall people with long legs? I don't know, but I think it should. So, I downloaded a metronome onto my iPhone, set it at 170 (actually at 85 so the beat would only be on my left steps), and turned up the volume. I ran the first mile with metronome off. I should mention that I did not want to be up this morning. I almost didn't get out of be, then I almost went back to bed, then I almost turned back before the end of the first mile. I was not in the mood to run, consequently my first mile was barely a shuffle, I could have almost walked faster than the 11 minute mile I ended up with. My plan was to run mile repeats at the 170 tempo and just see how it went. The first mile was easy and real slow. I figured something was wrong because 170 is not slow for me. I checked the metronome and it was set at 160 instead of 170. Oops. So the second me was better. The pace was good and sustainable, maybe a little too easy. I ran another. After those were done I turned around and decided to run two miles at a time instead of just the one and that turned out to be fairly easy as well. I'll have to bump it up next time. | 