hill training

mcmillan recommends short 45-60 second repeats and medium 90-120 repeats in hill phase after base building.

I would say hill training could be very effective at any time of the year?

Anybody got some advice on the various hill workouts?

HIlls are probably the best bang-for-your-buck session you can to. They train the legs much better than flatter workouts and you can reach much higher efforts up an incline compared to the flat. They are also less stressful from an impact point of view to a track workout so you'll find you wont beat up your legs as much.

I wouldn't overthink it too much. Find a hill, run up it hard and jog down. Repeat as much as you want. Mix it up a bit every week, short hills, medium hills and if your local topography allows it I think long hills are much underused. 800-1000m uphill reps are a truly fantastic workout. Don't worry about the longer rest, just get the work in.

As for when to do them? Anytime.

Thanks Daheee.

Can I ask what pace to run them at?

I know the hill sprints are as hard as you can go and thenfull recovery until ready to hit it again.

What pace or % max heart rate is recommended for short, medium and long continuous hills?

Hills are brilliant in theory but be careful, you can get sidelined for weeks or months if you damage your achilles. Especially from hard repeats, hill sprints etc. as people are recommending here.

I added hill reps/sprints to my training twice and both times got calf/achilles injuries soon after. I now haven't run for 6 weeks and only now can start jogging without pain. Massively frustrating. And I'm a natural sprinter too so am very comfortable running hard up on my toes. In my case there was no warning - just some brilliant hill sessions followed by 'hang on, that doesn't feel right' on an easy run.

I recommend several weeks of calf strengthening before starting.

I find hills are actually much safer than flat running. The impact forces are much less compared to sprinting or running on the flat so you beat up your legs much less.

While on the subject of hill training questions....how does everyone generally manage their 'rest' period for hill training?

I was doing longer hills yesterday (about 3 minute climb) and generally I like my rest to be shorter than my work period but the time needed to get back to the bottom while minimizing impact on my aging legs + the short 20 second breather at the top was taking me over 3 minutes every time.

Da heeeelll! wrote:

I find hills are actually much safer than flat running. The impact forces are much less compared to sprinting or running on the flat so you beat up your legs much less.

Impact forces are much less but the load you put on your calf and achilles is much greater. Like any variation, if you've got a weakness in the bit that's being stressed by the variation, it'll show up where it may never do otherwise. Achilles is particularly nasty as it can takes ages to mend and can easily recur, as I can attest. Pity, because otherwise hills really are excellent.

PatrickSebast wrote:

While on the subject of hill training questions....how does everyone generally manage their 'rest' period for hill training?

I was doing longer hills yesterday (about 3 minute climb) and generally I like my rest to be shorter than my work period but the time needed to get back to the bottom while minimizing impact on my aging legs + the short 20 second breather at the top was taking me over 3 minutes every time.

For hill repeats, just go hard up and recover back down. Don't get bogged down with hitting precise recovery times. Short hills, go faster. Long hills, measure the effort a bit.

I live in a "hilly" area and cannot avoid them in my runs. I like to attack them.