Footstrikes: How many do you take in a mile?

Dependent on your turnover(speed) and leg length (generally a taller stature equates to a longer stride thus less footstrikes versus a shorter person with a shorter stride) you will strike the ground an average 1,300 time per mile!  Doesn’t sound like much until you start to understand how many you’ll take over longer distances!  A great way to determine your # of footrikes and even stride length is to go to a local 400m track and run around it once and count the number of unique times your feet hit the ground.

I’d highly recommend running at race pace, whatever that may be 5K to Marathon to ensure the most accurate data possible.  You will want to start running about 50meters from the start line to establish a consistent speed and only count 1 leg.  You can count both if you’d like, but doing so may impede your ability to focus on the main task at hand, which is to run comfortably…counting and running poses a realy challenge for me sometimes.  Now simply multiply your # by 2 when you’ve completed 1 lap.

Example:  135 times my left foot hit the ground x 2 = 270 footstrikes for 400m’s.  Now I multiply that by 4 which is a factor of 4 laps = 1 mile.  270 x 4 = 1080 footstrikes per mile.

Now the fun stuff!  Let’s say I maintain this turnover for all of the below distances:

5K = 3,307 footstrikes

10K = 6,614 footstrikes

1/2 Marathon = 14,040 foostrikes

Marathon = 28,080 footstrikes

Now stride length is purely a factor of the distance you cover between your contact phase(when one foot first touches the running surface) and the next time it contacts the ground again.  There are 5,280 feet/1609 meters per mile.  Since I’m more comfortable with feet (pun intended) as a measurement I’ll use that figure.  So, if you take 1,080 footstrikes per mile you divide 5,280 by 1,080 and establish that you cover 4.8 feet with each stride.  Nice stride my man!

 

A far more detailed and accurate tool for this can be found courtesy of Dean Hebert’s blog at http://coachdeanhebert.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/stride-rate-versus-stride-length-ii-improving/

So, what is the benefit to this information?  First and foremost I find it to be very helpful in bringing to light how important it is to take care of the most critical piece in this equation which is your feet.  28,080 footstrikes is no walk in the park (pun intended).  You might also utilize this data to establish your ideal cadence or leg turnover which I’ve seen some training loosely based on.  If nothing else, you can brag about how many or how few it takes you to run a race!