reasons to incorporate hill running into running

Hill Training: Just Do It

Posted by: Sara in Running, Workouts April 2, 2014 20 Comments

Happy hump day friends!
I’ve had a crazy star to the week, but to be honest I am loving being busy! It means I am making progress.

I did my first workout on Monday since coming back from my injury. I’m really happy with my progress so far and figured it was time to start incorporating short speed workouts.

I was nervous as I got on the treadmill. I reassured myself that if I felt the slightest bit of discomfort during the run that I would immediately quit.
My workout consisted of:
2 mile warm up
4 x 400 at a 7:41 pace (the last 400 I did at a 7:35)
400 jog between each
1.5 mile cool down

I ended up with a total of 5.5 miles. I felt good. Really good. I was happy that my legs felt fresh. It really lifted my spirits and gave me hope.
Yesterday I decided I needed to relax and take my run outside. The weather called for it to warm up to almost 60 degrees! Unfortunately, it didn’t decide to get to those temperatures until much later in the day. It was about 45 when I went on my run, but it still felt wonderful.

I don’t know why but my Garmin decided it would take forever to find satellites yesterday.
I ran the first 4 mile on a back country road. The first several miles were flat but at mile 3 I got hit with my first steep hill.
I pushed through it and the rest of the first 4 miles leveled out. I forgot how wonderful it is to run in temperatures that aren’t below zero. It was heavenly.

I finished the last 2 miles of the run on a local college campus. I threw some hills in near the end and finished the last half mile on their track.

Total of just over 6 miles.

I can’t even fathom how I got through 4 months without running. It feels so good to finally be back at it.

You may have noticed that I have incorporated hills these past two weeks. I find a gradual uphill and run up and down it 4-5 times in the middle of my run.

What are the benefits of hill training?

• Combines strength training in with your run
• Strengthens tendons and ligaments
• Helps reduce injury
• Improves running form
• Forces your muscles to work together to pull your body weight
• Helps develop greater power and speed

They key when you are doing hill work is that you must maintain proper form.

• Upright posture – don’t lean forward or backward
• Listen to your breathing – if you are breathing too hard you either need to slow down or shorten your stride. You are working too hard. You are aiming for equal effort going up and down the hill.  If you try to maintain the effort you were running on flat you will tire yourself out too quickly.
• Shorten your stride – No matter if you are doing hill work or speed work you want your knees up and down as quick as possible, you don’t want to over stride and you want a quick push off from your ankle.

Hill work is an amazing tool both for being a stronger and faster runner!