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How to Train on Hills – The Secrets of Up and Down for a Stronger You and Racing Boston!

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“When you run hills, ideas surge their dormant heads and inspire you to pick up your mental pace.” Carmen Micsa, aka ninja

 

How many times do we see other runners brag that they had hills for breakfast and what does that mean to us runners looking to improve our form and racing times?

 

I just did this 16.8 mile run on Feb. 7th, two days before Valentine 4-mile race, where I PRed by 14 seconds, running it at 7:20 pace. My long run had various hills, which helped me practice my uphill and downhill running. My focus while running downhill was on keeping the legs under my body and not over striding. 
Photo Credit: A guy named Dave who was walking on this hill.

 

Hills Improve Our Running Efficiency and Form

 

After my Mountains 2 Beach marathon, which I ran in 3:30:59 in May 2018, I had a month of easy running, which for me due to my hilly neighborhood and love of hills, meant running hills short and long.  A few of my friends and running partners remarked that my form has improved and that I looked like a strong runner with very little upper body motion and great form. I seemed surprised until I read some articles about how hills make us stronger runners, as well as help us improve our running efficiency, economy, and our form.

 

There is also a technique to running uphill and downhill:

 

  1. When we run uphill, we need to pump our arms and fists towards our chins, as if executing powerful uppercuts. Our legs don’t need to do much, as pumping our arms will do the climbing.

 

 

Running uphill, I lean forward and don’t use my legs very much. Instead, I do uppercuts with my arms to propel myself at a steady pace and not consume more energy than necessary. Photo Credit: A guy named Dave who was walking on this hill.

 

 

  1. When running downhill, we need to lean slightly forward, as well as exaggerate our kicking and pretend that we are kicking our own butts. Over striding downhill will result in fatigue, poor form, and possibly knee pain, as our legs need to stay underneath our gravity center.

RunningQuarrytrailMOV

This is a video I took while running on our beautiful Auburn, CA trails.

 

Specific Hill Repeats to Incorporate in all our Training Runs

 

According to Runner’s World, there are four types of hill running workouts to increase speed and endurance.

 

 

  1. Longer hill workouts      One way to practice hills is to do our long runs on a hilly course. I am lucky to live in a neighborhood where hills come in all shapes and sizes, so I run them often.

 

Valentine 4-mile race, which has some rolling hills for which I have overprepared this week, doing a 16.8 mile super hilly long run, since the main goal is running a strong Boston marathon. Happy to run and represent the Arete Women’s Running Club Sacramento Chapter this year, making me a happier runner to have the support of so many amazing women runners who strive and stride for more. Photo Credit: Heather Sims

 

 

2. Hills for speed

 

To increase speed, practice running 30-second hill sprints at 5% to 10% incline on any type of terrain nearly all out. At first, start with 5 to 8 repeats and work up to 12-14. Jog 2 minutes in between repeats. Always warm up and cool down when doing hill repeats.

 

3. Hills to improve the running biomechanics

 

To practice better biomechanics, find shorter hills and do 10-15 second sprints 5 to 20 repeats, depending on your fitness and running level with jogging in between.

 

4. Specific hill workout for hilly courses, such as Boston

 

When preparing to run a hilly course, do a 2 mile warm-up, do 6 to 8 hill repeats at an effort of 7 out of 10, then run 1 to 3  miles at GMP (gross marathon pace), followed by 1 mile to 2 miles cool down. I did this workout a few times, doing the Penn hill repeats out in Fair Oaks, or doing the Hazel hill repeats close to the Fish Hatchery followed by 2 miles at marathon pace. It is a hard workout, but it certainly prepares the body to run strong on a hilly course.

 

 

No description needed. Too much joy and exhilaration running through my slice of Paradise with hills of various inclines. Love running there and finishing the run with more hills, as it is my recovery hilly route.

 

 

I remember the year I ran my second California International Marathon we had a woman in our pace group from Florida who was cursing the hills as often as we ran over any kind of hill. She was totally not prepared for the hilly marathon, which is why you want to do your homework ahead of time and avoid hill disasters.

While hills are as good for runners as eating our veggies and fruit, Jack Daniels, PhD named world’s best running coach by Runner’s World, advises to gradually add hills to your training regimen in order to avoid injuries. He also recommends doing a 20-mile long run on rolling hills five weeks out from a marathon and to stay away from downhill training during the final couple of weeks before the marathon.

 

And now that we have our hill workouts cut out, here are some popular races with net downhill that give high hopes of securing a PR or BQ (Boston qualifying time):

 

Date / Race / Net Drop / Info
Oct. 3 / St. GeorgeMarathon, St. George, UT / 2,560 feet / stgeorgemarathon.com
Oct. 4 / Wineglass Marathon, Corning, NY / 220 feet / wineglassmarathon.com
Oct. 10 / WhistleStop Marathon, Ashland, WI / 510 feet / whistlestopmarathon.com
Oct. 11 / Bizz Johnson Trail Marathon, Susanville, CA / 1,100 feet / bizzjohnson.com
Oct. 11 / Steamtown Marathon, Scranton, PA / 955 feet / steamtownmarathon.com
Dec. 6 / Cal-International, Sacramento, CA / 340 feet / runcim.org
Dec. 10 / Tucson Marathon, Tucson, AZ / 2,200 feet / tucsonmarathon.com
Apr. 19 / Boston Marathon, Boston, MA / 450 feet / bostonmarathon.org

 

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For more info on running and real estate, whether buying or selling, please e-mail me at carmenmicsa@yahoo.com, or call me at 916-342-2446. Running for real estate with joy!