Thursday, May 5th . . . technique drills

65 minutes of technique drills (skipping, bounding and marching) and short hill sprints (40-60 meters up steep hills). Key workout for stride efficiency. Interesting thing to note . . . for masters' runners, you maintain stride rate into your 80's but you lose 40% of your stride length as you get older unless you do these type of drills to combat it.

Otherwise, you become a shuffler and while we have elite shuffle runners, they rarely are able to beat runners with smooth longer strides like Bekele and most of the great East African runners. Stride efficiency is a result of a stride rate and stridge length and if you don't concentrate on both, you can't run efficiency and you increase the likelihood of injury.

As Pete Magill says (he ran sub 15:00 5k at age 47), a "smooth long stride is an essential ingredient of a fast 5k" . . . and these drills help you achieve that without over-striding.

Harry