Hill running
Since some of us live near hills and might do our weekly runs on hills we thought it was high time to dole out some information on running hills.
Hills are an excellent way to improve speed and strength, as well as confidence. Hill work is “speed work in disguise” because after running or walking hills, the muscles in your legs get significantly stronger. Stronger legs allow you to go faster with less effort. In fact, hill training is the most sport-specific form of strength training that a marathoner can do. You should run the uphill portion under control and as relaxed as possible as you can and then you can generally make up the time difference on the downhill. In other words, don’t fight gravity. You will lose, we always do.
Some tips for up hills are:
1. Shorten your stride. Don’t try to bound up the hill.
2. Keep yourself perpendicular to the ground. Don’t lean too far forward or back.
3. Stay relaxed in your upper body, which means shoulder down, neck and arms relaxed.
4. You should not be gasping for air. Try to maintain a conversational pace, your running rhythm should stay the same as running flat. If you can’t talk, slow down.
5. If you can, do the entire hill in one continuous motion, up and over the crest. Don’t stop at the top. Instead use your rhythm which will help you keep your form on the downhill. You’ll find it easier to pick up the pace from a running start than a walking start.
6. If you need to walk part of the hill, do so, but start running before you crest the top as this will make the transition into the downhill much easier and more efficient mechanically.
7. Try and find a comfortable rhythm with which you can run the entire length of the hill. If the hill gets steeper simply adjust your rhythm so that you maintain your original pace. If the hill starts to flatten out then you can adjust your rhythm to pick up the pace to maintain the original pace.
Some tips for the downhill are:
1. Don’t step out on your stride. Instead, either step straight down or think about picking you feet up as quickly as possible. Keep your stride short. By default, gravity will tend to lengthen your stride so you don’t need to actively do so.
2. Stay perpendicular to the ground. Don’t lean back or forward.
3. Controlling speed on downhills is a matter of hip turnover. Instead of leaning back and breaking to slow down which puts a great deal of stress on the joints and muscles, one should think of a shorter stride and slowing down how fast your legs are moving. A good habit to get into is to start the downhill slower than normal so as not to pick up too much speed too quickly and get scared and start breaking which wastes a lot of energy and is hard on the body.
4. Don’t try to go too fast to make up time as quads take quite a beating going down hill. When going downhill, you should be as light on your feet as possible. Let gravity just pull you down at a faster and faster rate to the end of the downhill so that you finish with a nice little bit of speed to use to ascend the next hill or cruise the flat.
See ya out there on the hills.
Tags: hills, Marathon Training, Running