A Guide to Hill Running

FOR ANY new runner the thought of hills can cause some form of anxiety.   It's far easier to stick to flat routes and run around the hill, but half of the problem is phychological and you just have to get over it, sometimes literally.

Having invested in a LiRF course with England Athletics I decided to look into the whole issue and use the information to coach and support other athletes.   Here is the highlights ...

Begin with a gentle slope; it will start you off in the right direction, never go straight for the mountain and end up injuring yourself.   Running isn't a sport that you should aim to do between injuries!

What is hill training and what are the benefits?

There is a simple answer to this as it's simply repetitions of running up a slope or incline.   The benefits of hill running can result in your leg muscles gaining strength and it helps to improve your running technique, improve endurance which makes you stronger over distance, also add variation to your training and are a form of strength training.

How to include hills in your training?

It's recommended to add a hill training session to your training once a fortnight, and on a day where you are rested.   In other words not the day after a long run!   The day following a hill session, if you are planning to run, then make sure you run slow and easy and use the run as recovery.

As time goes on and your strength improves, weekly hill runs can be built into your training or alternate them with other fitness sessions. For example: one week add a hill run and then the following week an off-road interval session.

Example hill sessions

To get you started here are two options to try out.   Make sure that you have done a really good warm up because you don't want to go into this with cold muscles.   And don't forget to stretch the muscles out afterwards.

Session one (starter level)

If you have not run a hill session before and want to get a taste of what is involved, look at your routes and find a 1 to 2 mile loop with a few hills of varying degrees and distance.

Run at an easy-steady pace on the flat.    Once you get to the first hill, run hard to just over the brow.    Then run steady from the top of the hill onto the next one – and repeat.  Do as many times as you feel you can manage. 

Session two

Where I live there is a park with a hill up one side that's about 400m in length.   There are six lamposts that run up the side of it.   I get a good pace up to run to the bottom of the hill and then come back to the first lampost.   Once there I run back down and come back up to the second lampost.   I then repeat working my way up to the last lampost.

The aim is to slowly increase the length of time I am running up hill and recovering on the run back down.   I am aiming to run down hill slower so that my recovery time is greater than my effort time.

Hill sessions can sound tough so this is where I use the Haywards Heath Harriers sessions, but you can just use a friend to join you for motivation.   To begin, you may feel that you cannot jog down the hill and recover.   If this is the case, do not panic and just walk down instead.   Always do this at your own ability and build up your resilience by using stress and stimuli.  Gently build up the running staying free from injury and remember the most important part, ENJOY IT!   There are sompe beautfiul hills around the country.   The pictures used on this blog are from the Haywards Heath Harriers Spring Series Virtual Run - South Downs Half Marathon.