Those are my interval times. I'm going to start to lifting to see if that makes any improvements to my speed.
Those interval times sound normal to me for your 5K time. Do you ever do form drills and hills? Not saying your form is bad, but straightening up a few loose angles (if there are any) can very directly affect speed. Do report back on speed gains from lifting. I've never found the motivation (and not sure how much I believe in it at our level), but I'm definitely interested in hearing your results!
Does anyone have good tutorials on proper breathing and form? I've been running for a long time and I'm realizing that I'm doing both wrong, and my wife is just starting. I don't want to start her off down the wrong path.
Many on the youtubes, look up sage canaday's channel. Don't take everything he says as gospel, he's ok but he parrots out the cadence meme like a dumb jock.
Running form is hard to do but easy to conceive. Run tall, shoulders wide open, head high, look far away not the ground below your feet, hit the ground below you (not in front), make contact with mid- to front-foot, lift knees, minimize lateral movement of arms, drive your forward momentum with a slight forward lean (body straight on average, don't bend at the hip), minimize contact duration of the foot on the ground (imagine running on egg shells or hot coals). Then, you only need to do all that while keeping all muscles not directly engaged in the effort (everything that's not legs or butt) as relaxed as possible. Tall and shoulders opened, but shoulders relaxed and loose. And I would not worry about cadence one bit.
When I run (and want to keep form) I have this mental circuit in my head, I go from head to toes and start over, head high, stand tall, shoulders opened, shoulders relaxed, etc, down to front contact zone, short contacts, dynamic pushoffs. Then I cycle back to: head high, etc.
Edit: here's a
video with a few good bits. Note that her arms swing too much towards the center of her body though, and I'd say her elbows are too open but that's more of a personal, what you're comfortable with kind of thing. But foot strikes are on point. Ignore the stride rate thing at the end. The 180 fits all obsession is backwards and comes from a lack of understanding of bio-mechanics.
Bonus pictures because it's either wasting time here or going to the office and doing actual work,
Good: forward lean drives momentum, body on a straight line, good pushoff off of the toes.
Terribad: arms swinging laterally, left arm about to cross sagittal plane, head tilted forward, looking down at his feet.
