stride : breath
Four strides, one inhale; four strides, one exhale— eight strides, one breath.
I’m warming up, or I’m ¾ of the way through my run and trying to force myself to slow.
Three strides, one inhale; three strides, one exhale— six strides, one breath.
I’m starting to cook! Feeling good. Or maybe I’m cruising gently downhill.
Four strides, an inhale; three strides, exhale— seven strides; one breath.
I’m almost halfway up a hill, or had to swerve for some reason or got lost in thought.
Two strides, inhale; two strides, exhale— four strides and one breath.
I’m either almost to the top of a hill or I’ve decided to gun it for the last block.
stride, breath; stride, breath— one and one.
I’m running from the cops.
speed / pace
A third value is added to the ratio: pace (if you’re disciplined or practiced, or speed if you’re still working on that (or, I suppose, just wanting to go fast)). If A is stride and B is breath and C is pace, the general rule is that the lower the value of A, the higher the value of C— the fewer strides per breath, the faster one goes. The reality is, however, that C her can also mean how hard one is working. At best you’re huffing up a steep incline, but more than likely you’re out of shape or at your limit, huffing to keep any pace.
stride : breath : pace
How hard one is working is notoriously and practically difficult to measure/ ascribe value to, as something we mostly identify through its symptoms— wheezing, grunting— and the relationship between those signs and our actual speed or pace. And while it is not the case that speed or pace is difficult to measure, the point is that while embodying the running ratio— while running— speed, as a value, is also difficult not only to ascertain, but to ascribe reasons for. Is my form improving? Am I on a hill? What minor adjustment to which muscle group is aiding in my new found velocity? And how is it that it is possible to be cranking out a 2:1 stride/ breath ratio, but hardly be moving? Or, conversely, to be gliding along at a graceful 4:1 and really be cookin’? The idea is that the novice will be closer to the former and the practiced, disciplined runner will more comfortably embody the latter.
embodiment
This is how one “listens” to one’s body. We say “listen” but what we mean is: level as much of our sensorium as we can, or those parts of it that are necessary or most fitting, toward the apprehension of something— in this case our body, our body while we run. Thinking of it like this, the act of working to apprehend ourselves, of sensing, from our sensing apparatus, which in many ways is our apparatus entire, is simply embodying ourselves.