Playing with form

There's a great article in this month's Runner's World about Running Form.  What is the perfect form?  Is there a perfect?  Who would best represent that?

The article basically says that Ryan Hall has what the experts are saying is ideal running form - mid-foot strike, loose arms, etc.  They offered a few real-life examples of how you can improve your stride.  I was reading this article last weekend, and was intrigued by something they said about your arm/elbow angle.  There's a girl who runs in my neighborhood who runs with her arms almost fully open, hands by her hips.  I always thought it was interesting - it must be comfortable for her?  After reading the article, I decided to open up my elbow angle a bit and see what happens.

Well, long story short, it was magical.  I consciously worked on opening the elbow angle during Sunday's long run.  I immediately felt more fluid & powerful, and even near the end of the run, dropping my hands again gave me a surge of power.  It made running feel easier.

SO!  That was a fun little experiment.  It never dawned on me to drop my arms.  I did notice that as I got more tired my hands would start creeping up towards my face and going more side-to-side-ahoy-i'm-a-pirate.

I played around a bit with my stride on my treadmill run Wednesday night.  Nothing for sure there yet, but I did notice that my stride feels much shorter when I'm on the treadmill.  I think it's my subconscious coming into play - I'm always afraid I'm going to pull my computer off of its stand when my headphones are hooked into it, so I try to run at the very front of the belt.  Odd?