Hills Again
More than just a hard workout.
We have talked about hill workouts before but usually in the context of conditioning, as a workout. Today we are going to put a different context around hill workouts. We will cover why hills are a good alternative for we older folks as a form of prophylactic speed work. We’ll cover where and how to position these hill workouts in your training cycles. Finally, and maybe most importantly, we’ll put hill work into the context of a practice rather than a workout.
As always, I’m not a certified coach of any kind and I learn by doing. My coach Jeff Kline helped me reposition hill workouts in my training in this way and I owe a lot of this learning not only to my own practice but to his influence. I’ll put a link to his e-book about training and his site here. https://teamprsfit.com/#forathletes
When I first started training seriously for races, I adopted the practice of hill training as part of my race specific training. If I had a hilly race or a race with a hill or two in it I would add hard, ¼ to ½ mile hill charges into the final weeks before the race as a race specific hard, speed workout.
My theory was; when I got to that hill in the race, I wanted to feel strong for it. I wanted to run those hill repeats hard now, in training, so I’d have that muscle memory to make them feel easy in the race.
And that’s a perfectly valid way to use hills in training as a hard workout. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve moved away from these max-effort hill workouts, because they are really hard on your body. They don’t fit well into the volume and intensity of the training I’m doing now.
I still do hill work, but it’s for a different purpose. I don’t do them at max effort to exhaustion. I’m focusing more on form than conditioning.
When you treat the hill this way it is still a great tempo workout. What’s the difference? Before I would run the hill and be at max effort, max heart rate and totally redlined in the last third of the hill. When I got to the top I’d be bent over gasping for air. My form would be pretty bad in those last 50 meters as I beat myself into the hill.
When I run a hill now, I’m focused on maintaining perfect form the whole effort. I run them at 80-85% effort level. When I get to the top, I’m still close to max heart rate, but just as I get there, not during the workout. During the workout I’m running with good form and lower effort.
This is far less damaging on my body and gets the same if not better results. Because now I’m not just stressing my legs and cardio, I’m practicing hill running. This is important. In an actual race you never have the need to push at 100% up or down a hill. You do have the need to run efficiently though hills.
I made this mistake when I was running the mountain race series. I trained by doing hill charges like I always had. This training was useless because there is no place in a 6-mile mountain climb that you’re going to be running at max and using that form. It’s stupid.
This lower effort form of hill work is a great way to bring some speed work into your training without going to the track. Uphill running also forces you to stop heel striking.
Where does this fall in the training cycle? Two places. If you look at a 18 week marathon cycle, you can typically break it up into 3 phases. The first is base building and strength. The second starts to ramp up and the final third is where the volume and race specificity is.
You can drop these easier hill tempo runs into any of these phases. In the beginning they will be shorter, maybe 60 seconds. As you build into the training they will move to 2 or 3 minutes in length and you’ll work up to 10 – 15 reps.
They way you approach these is to go into the hill at your marathon pace. Hold that pace, it should feel hard, with perfect form. As you get into the last 3rd of the repeat accelerate a bit, take the effort level up to 80-85%, again focusing on perfect form. You won’t have to push in the last 3rd because the hill will bring that effort to you. It get’s hard to hold that 85% towards the top and you’ll feel it, but your form never breaks. If your form breaks you went to hard.
There’s an art to form on hills. Uphill running form is easier than downhill. When you run uphill you maintain that good running form same as you would on flat ground. Upright, not leaning forward into the hill. Push those hips forward. Lift those knees a bit and have a nice rapid, quick, light cadence, landing on the forefoot. Hands high and light. Head up and eyes looking into the hill. Not at your feet, not at the top of the hill, into the hill.
Downhill is trickier. You’ll naturally feel like having your feet land out in front of you to slow you down. Downhill form follows the same basic principle. Keep your center of gravity directly under you. Don’t lean back or lean forward. Try to still land on your forefoot. Don’t’ fight the hill.
It’s easier to hold that good form if you can shift body mass back without leaning back. Tricks to do this are, one, push your elbows back, and two, butt kick your heels. This will shift your mass enough that you don’t have to brake as much.
This is where hill work becomes practice rather than a discrete workout. This is also how you can use hill practice in your regular runs or long runs. Run a course with some big hills or some rolling hills and each one of those ups, downs and rollers is a place to practice easy, efficient hill form.