You asked for a clue rather than the answer, so here is my suggestion:

If you substitute a letter for each number, using a synonym for "stride" in line 2, then you can guess numbers 3 and 6. You can then make an anagram of the six letters. I got half a dozen possible 6-letter words out of this.

If there is a definitive answer then I suppose I should continue to guess the last two letters until only one solution is available.


DC