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Stride length?

My stride length hovers between 1.0 and 1.07 meters with a cadence of 170. This is all well and good but something is wrong when I do some benchmarking. Good runners seem to be in the 1.8-2.3 meter range with a much higher cadence. If you extrapolate from my pace with my numbers, you would have world class average runs. Is it possible that the Garmin is presenting step rate (distance from one foot to the next) as stride rate (distance between right or left foot strikes)?

This is making me nuts as I don't know how to interpret the numbers.
  • Those numbers look normal to me. What sort of pace are you doing there?

    Pretty sure stride length is one foot fall to the next and so the same that Garmin now report for cadence in steps per minute (so double what you used to see when was same foot to same foot)

    Of course world class runners in races can be going pretty much double the pace of us lesser mortals out on our easy runs so stride lengths around 2m not at all surprising.

    I had a look at the cadence numbers in a recent good club standard XC race I was in and it was interesting that the leading runners had cadence values from as low as low 160s to around 200. So "anything goes". Of course to cover the ground at the same pace, a low cadence means a huge stride but generally having too big a stride for a certain pace is not ideal as you will be probably be "bouncing" more and probably more tiring in the longer term.

    As such it is usually suggested that a higher cadence is better than a slower one although I do find cadence somewhat related to pace for myself.

    As a guide of somebody not elite but a decent club standard for their age (50) - me!
    Then https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1462784680 is a recent 10K I did at bit under 6 min/mile pace where I see my average stride length was 1.44m and cadence 190.
    I think my cadence is possibly a bit too "quick" and so even though I am very tall (1.95m) my stride length isn't overly big.
    When say doing a hard 400m on the track (say well under 70 secs) I can get to around 200 spm and towards 2.00 metre stride length.
  • This particular run was 2.5 miles (according to GPS) at 9:03 pace.

    (edited to remove a bunch of babble due to a mistake in my calculations...)

    It appears that the 'stride length' is actually step length. When I validated with excel (fixing my stupid mistake) I get the following:

    Holding cadence and stride length constant, the run was 2.58 miles. Holding the run length and cadence constant, the stride length is 1.01 meters. When I planned this route using RidewithGPS, it came in at 2.6 miles so I am willing to bet that the Garmin GPS was just slightly off and that the run metrics are closer to correct.
  • All seems in the ballpark. Don't forget that tools like RideWithGPS measure things a little differently to how you might actually run a route.

    I just tried one and it basically routes you down the middle of the road - fine with a long straight but less accurate with lots of turns as runners don't tend to take turns running in the middle of the road!

    In other words, it is unlikely to be an exact comparison and also a distance of 2.6 (i.e. one decimal place) could mean it is actually anywhere between 2.55 and 2.65 or perhaps 2.60 and 2.70 depending on how they do their rounding.
  • Yep.

    The bottom line is that I confirmed what 'stride length' meant. Unfortunately, I also confirmed that I have a lot of work to do on my running dynamics!

    Thanks, everyone!


    All seems in the ballpark. Don't forget that tools like RideWithGPS measure things a little differently to how you might actually run a route.

    I just tried one and it basically routes you down the middle of the road - fine with a long straight but less accurate with lots of turns as runners don't tend to take turns running in the middle of the road!

    In other words, it is unlikely to be an exact comparison and also a distance of 2.6 (i.e. one decimal place) could mean it is actually anywhere between 2.55 and 2.65 or perhaps 2.60 and 2.70 depending on how they do their rounding.
  • When running regardless of pace - seems most people fall in the 170-190 range for cadence. So a slower runner and faster runner will still have similar cadence at a given effort. 5k pace or easy pace. However the stride length will determine their speed.

    My avg run is around 190 and .95 - at 8:50/mi - one issue I see with the watch is that I get a fair amount of missed steps (there will be a scattering of SPM in red down at 90-110) which effects that avg. Actual consistent SPM is closer to 195. I pitter patter a bit while running - so trying to work on a stronger/deeper pushoff and acompanny it with a stronger knee pull up. not really working....lol but as a 6' person... I would like to see my stride closer to 1.0-1.2meter...oh well. quick feet...less impact...so maybe not as efficient as I could be(?) but maybe healthier?

    Edit: Noticed on this morning's run - the v02max/tempo sections in the middle of the run had a Cadence of 199-215...AND the stride length got longer as well (1.06-1.14) in the 7:30-6:30 pace range.
  • It all depends on how you're put together. I'm also 6' tall and my usual easy runs are in the 8:50-9:05 pace range, so similar height and pace, but my normal cadence is 176-182 with a stride length of 1.0-1.03 at that pace. When I get to around 5k pace (7:00-7:15) then I get up around 190spm with a stride length of 1.15m.