Look, I don’t care if you like hills or not. It’s not personal, it’s just that it doesn’t matter. Years of research and results have continually proven that hills are a beneficial training tool. That’s why the top athletes in the world regularly train using hill repeats (e.g. Jacob Ingebritsen, Jake Wightman, etc), and why your opinion is a moot point. Hills are good whether you like them or not, so here are my top three tips to help you start taking advantage of this training method.
- Use effort as your guide. Every hill will vary in its grade and surface, plus it’s difficult to convert uphill speeds to flat speeds, so don’t get caught up in pace. Decide on an effort range before the workout (e.g. cross country race pace effort) and focus on nailing that effort throughout the workout. You can even do this workout without a watch by marking out a distance and repeating that instead of going off time.
- Focus on form. It’s easy to let your form fall apart when the workout starts getting tough…and hills are always tough. So make sure to stay focused on lifting those knees, putting power into every push-off, swinging your arms, and keeping your eyes focused on the path in front of you. Hills are a great way to improve running economy and form because they shorten the stride length and increase the stride frequency, so take advantage of that!
- Don’t rush the rest. I use the jog down the hill as my rest interval, and I don’t time it or try to keep it to a certain duration. I just jog down at a speed that feels natural and good, allowing myself plenty of rest before the next rep. I find that it’s difficult to keep hill repeats from going above a moderately hard effort-range, so allowing a long rest interval keeps it from getting above the desired effort range.
If you want to know more about my thoughts on hill workouts and see me do one, watch the video below.
