Do you have a love / hate relationship with hills during your runs and races? Do you find yourself out of breath, struggling, and being passed up the hills? Are you glad to get to the top so you can rest only to be passed by a runner who looks like she's wearing roller skates?
There are ways that we can learn to love the hills and use them as our best tool in our tool box in races.
A lot of runners fear hills. As such, they tend to charge up the hill too fast and find themselves having to recover at the top or on the descend that follows. This is exactly the opposite of what we want to do in order to run the hills efficiently. The key to improving our hill running is on how to approach them mentally.
Learning to run hills properly will result in making us a stronger, healthier and faster runner. The outcome is that road racing performance on hilly terrain will improve immensely and you will begin to love hills.
Running Cadence and Effort on Uphills and Downhills
The key to running hills has to do with effort. The goal should be to expend only slightly more energy running uphill than we would when running on the flat. The key is to learn to relax and take it easy on the uphill. On the downhill we must let our self go and even push a little. It is important to reach the top of the hill feeling good and then to let the hill work for us as we descend down.
Maintaining cadence is a key aspect of even effort. When we run, a large percentage of the blood pumped through the leg muscles is pumped by the motion of the muscles themselves. Slowing down cadence means less oxygen can be delivered to the muscles. We want to maintain an even cadence uphill, downhill and on the flat. In order to accomplish this, and vary uphill and downhill speeds, we will have to adjust our stride length from very short steps up a steep hill to very long strides down a moderate hill.
The best way to see the amount of effort we are using is by training and racing with a heart rate monitor (HRM). A HRM provides instant feedback on our effort. I recommend that in training during an easy run to allow the heart rate to increase about 5 to 10 beats per minute when attacking a hill, and keeping it about the same as the easy run heart rate on the downhill. In a race, this should be about 5 beats per minute over our ideal racing heart rate for the uphill.
Practicing Uphill and Downhill Running
Once a week on an easy day pick a moderate hill of 60 to 100 meters long. A moderate hill is one that is steep enough that you might feel uncomfortable running down it but you are still able to remain in control. Warm-up by running two to three kilometers on the flat, run three to four continuous circuits of the hill (up, turn around, down, turn around). Pay attention to how your body feels going up and down and while making the transitions from up to down and vice versa. Do you feel like you’re working too hard, tense, and awkward or out of control?
Let's walk through a few drills that will help you to master uphill and downhill running.
Uphill
Take short quick steps and use your arms in a straight back and forward and up motion to help lift your legs. Concentrate on relaxing your upper body and particularly the back of your upper legs. Look where you are going and not down at your feet.
Downhill
Don't hold back and let go of your fear. Lengthen out your stride to take advantage of the hill. Land on the balls of your feet with your knees bent. Let your arms swing to the sides and across your body to help keep your balance and to rotate your hips to improve stride length. Concentrate on using the muscles in the backs of your legs to push you forward. You can go a lot faster than you think and still be under control.
Transitions
Strive to make a smooth but immediate transition in your form and stride length as you go from uphill to downhill or as the slope changes. Anticipate the changes in terrain and change your form and stride length accordingly. Maintain your cadence.
Common Mistakes
- Attacking the uphill. Going to fast at the start of a hill leads to oxygen debt. The focus needs to be on relaxing and metering out your energy over the hill. Most hills tend to be the steepest at the bottom and flatten out near the top. A well run hill has you picking it up at the top and into the downhill transition.
- Over striding uphill. As stated earlier the muscles of the legs are major pumps for the blood supply of oxygen and fuel while running. A short quick stride helps supply more fuel and oxygen than a long and slow one uphill.
- Looking at your feet. Maintain your posture uphill and downhill by looking into the distance or upper slope of the hill. Hunching over or looking at your feet will tense up your muscles and hinder your breathing and balance,
- Resting or holding back on the downhill. If you do not accelerate on the downhill, you will lose the opportunity to get free speed. If you don’t believe this, try running downhill with a heart rate monitor and notice how much faster you can run at the same heart rate than on the flat. Listen for how your feet hit the ground. If you hear your feet slapping the ground hard, it is likely that your are holding back and actually braking. Work on increasing stride length and using your arm swing for balance. Braking on hills results in heel striking and jolting of the quads.
- Not thinking ahead. Look ahead for variations in the slope up or down and adapt to them immediately. Waiting until you are tying up from lactic acid uphill or hearing the slapping feet downhill to change your form is too late, and energy will have already been wasted.
Pulling it all Together
What I have my athletes do in preparation for hilly courses is to practise by incorporating uphills, down hills and the transition in a workout. One of my favourite workouts consists of hills, tempo, hills. Here is how it is executed:
- Pick a hill that is about 6 to 8% grade and that takes you 2 to 3 minutes to run up.
- Run the hill at slightly faster than the effort you would do for a 10km race.
- Run down the hill at about 65% of your 10km race effort.
- Repeat for 2 to 4 times.
- Post the hills, run 15 to 20 minute at tempo pace on a relatively flat course. The effort of this tempo is about 8 to 10 seconds per km slower than your 10km race pace.
- Post the tempo, it is back to the hills. Run the same hill as before in exactly the same way.
- Begin and finish this workout with 2 to 3 km of easy running.
This workout will have you approach uphills and downhills more effectively. It also will help you cope the awkwardness that is felt with coming off hills. Coming off of a hilly section on a run course results in a sloppy stride. Listen for the excessive slapping of feet. Gather yourself, and focus on cadence, high knees, relaxed arms and leading with the hips.
Racing Tips
A hilly course is challenging, and it is easy just to slow down. Practise these tips in your next race.
Keep your mind and body relaxed. Look within yourself and focus on you. Think confident thoughts and repeat confident mantras to yourself; “I am fast, this feels good” or “I am strong, I’m running great”. Every time you feel tired or feel the pace slip, repeat to yourself that you need to refocus and concentrate and get back on pace. Just having the mental imagery of good form will help you maintain pace when the muscles become increasingly tired with each step.
If the pace starts to slip, throw in a surge of 20 seconds to get your legs fired up again.
Think of some great workouts that you did. Remember how it felt and think to yourself, “hey, I did this workout before, let’s get back on pace and do it again”.
