Lots of Little
Out of all of the excitement that could happen in a teenagers life I chuckled when I received a photo of a running watch with workout data flashing across the screen. There was a sense of pride and accomplishment from the numbers of the run, but not the ones you would think are most important. And this high-school runner was excited that an often overlooked number was right where it needed to be. There was evidence of the distance and pace traveled in our track workout but the focus of this picture and the joyful approval of the runner was strictly on cadence. Why would cadence be so special?
Cadence is how many steps per minute one takes while running. While this can be a nice number to dig into when studying one’s performance it’s not very often that a runner gets excited about seeing cadence over everything else. Cadence shows them HOW they ran; literally every step of the way. Many want to see WHAT they ran; the distance, the pace, and the finishing place if they are racing. Those can be important as well but only show one side of the story. Cadence breaks it down further and shows us all of the little steps we took to get to the big finish. Cadence puts the distance and the pace into lots of little stories.
I admit I’ve leaned on cadence a lot in my life as a runner. I have been extremely durable, sometimes “fast”, and once in a while I could move my big frame in an efficient way. Cadence helped with all of this because I did a lot of work in smaller chunks. Adding a few extra steps per minute wasn’t a penalty, it actually made me more complete as a runner and cover the distance without inflicting more damage to my body. Using what I had to the best of my ability has allowed me to keep running and not fall into a big old heap of Beck broken bones.
If I continued to run the same distance and pace but had a slower cadence I would feel the pain of running more. Each stride would cover more ground which sounds great on paper or first thought. But long strides and “overstriding” means that I’ll be hitting the ground with more force on each step. More force is detrimental to running long term. Going far with that stride means more impact and eventual pain.
And yet the common mindset of a runner is to capture as much distance with each step as humanly possible. Stride it out. Take those long steps. Cover the distance with gusto! Launch with every step and pound that pavement into submission! Big strides can get you there but that doesn’t mean it’s advantageous to run that way. There’s a sweet spot for running cadence. Too low of a cadence and we’re beating ourselves up. Too fast of a cadence and we aren’t covering much ground with our steps.
An ideal cadence is adopting a healthy rhythm where your feet stay under your body and mimic a wheel. Gone is the long, loping strides where knees beg for mercy and shins shout in agony. That sweet spot of strides per minute is the fusion of covering the right amount of distance that our legs are capable of in the correct timing of our feet hitting the ground. As an added bonus a quick cadence allows us to pivot, change directions, and run up and down hills with less pounding. In a world that covets WHAT we run, I think it’s more important to focus on HOW we run.
I’m not exactly talking solely (Ha! See what I did there?) about running and foot strikes. I’m talking about living life by accomplishments versus a cadence that completes the distance wholly and completely.
Life is more than what we do or did. It’s more than the big steps. And yet we find ourselves falling into the big strides mode. We stretch out the way we live by trying to focus on what we accomplished and did. We let our resume speak. If we can just curate the correct image based on the big things we did then that will be success. That will be a legacy!
But just like efficient running, life isn’t all about those big strides. It’s more about making every small step count. The small steps are not insignificant. In fact, small steps show character and a willingness to let God work fully in our lives. I know I sometimes want to skip over the little steps and go straight to the big picture and take big steps to get there. Go big and go long! But God doesn’t work this way. He tends to work in His own timing if you haven’t noticed. But the process is thorough and complete once all the small steps are taken.
Every day is an opportunity to work on cadence and bring it into alignment with what God is doing in your life. And that cadence is going to involve a lot of little steps! Little but significant, the small steps of how we do life matter.
People are drawn to HOW things are done but are often saddened by knowing the discipline and process it takes because it’s tough living by cadence. It’s not popular because it’s not natural. It’s not easy. It’s counter cultural! I think we all want to get to the point where we know and accomplish the “What”. That’s usually the goal or the big thing to paint the picture. But God wants our heart and will work consistently and constantly on the little steps to get you to the destination He designed for you from Day 1!
The next time you measure your life try to take inventory of the not-so common metrics. You are more than the big numbers. More than two data points. More than just how far and fast you went. Look at your cadence; did your steps allow you to depend on God a bit more? Did His work in you allow you to have influence on others? Did your small steps lift up others along the way? How are you running today?
