Good mountain and hill runners- Help us coach the LetsRun.com Team at the World Cross Champs

malmo wrote:

joalturn wrote:

The best piece of advice I ever got in regards to hill running is to focus on a quick, efficient cadence when going up hills, to the point where you are shortening your stride a bit.

^^^^^^ This is everything. Shorten your stride and go to the arms.

Second.

malmo wrote:

wejo wrote:

I think my advice to Kelsey and Matt may be "you can't start too slow" the first lap.

If Matt is from Maryland then he has run or at least heard of, Hereford's xc course.

I am so envious of these guys that they get to experience this race. Sounds a lot like Cinque Mulini's famed course -- with even more bells and whistles.

I don’t think any course compares to this but I haven’t seen the Cinque. I should ask Lynn Jennings. She won that race twice but is here and said of this course ‘The natural elements of this course are are as authentic as they should be, the hills and undulations. Add in the extra elements of the mud and water and it is truly the best and the toughest cross country course I have seen...’

In video below she says very eloquently what xc and this course is about

And anyone running 15mph in a race is not only not hiking, but not running longer than 400m.

The bigger issue as I see it, is why have we gotten away from running xc in this country? Certainly what we do at the NCAA level is not cross country. Recent USATF national championships are not xc. It's not bad by any means, but doesn't prepare us for what happens on the world stage.

I was a decent college runner who had a stint as a decent trail runner.

The number one thing I was good at and even still took some adjustment for me was the ability to alter my stride length at an even effort. You stride can tighten up real quick going from up a steep grade to going into a steep decline or even into a flat section.

Short term? Do some strides altering up and flat, up to down, down to up, etc. Get some of that muscle memory down.

Hank Moody wrote:

This is world xc. No one is frickin' hiking.

If that hill was 50%, they would be hiking because it would be much more efficient than running. At 10% grade, it will be much LESS efficient to do any hiking.

This is the difference between trail running and cross country where it isn't that uncommon to have inclines of 30% or more on trail. Here is a guy trying to break the vertical k record on a course that averages about 53% incline. In this video, the cameraman is hiking as fast as Stian is "running".

On the laughably NOT hilly world xc course, the average incline will only be 3% and they get to decline just as much. While this course will certainly slow runners down, it will only be about 20-25 seconds per mile depending on speed.

Stian is one of the greatest mountain-climbing runners in the world right now...I think he's a way better flat-out climber than Kilian (who is better at downhills).

But that's mountain running up like 15-30% grades on single track and other technical trails.

These XC runners can hit 10% grade hills and maybe slow down to 5:30 mile pace (coming off of something like 4:45-4:50 pace on the flats).

When I was running well at Mt. WA (12% grade average climb on the road) I managed sub 8:00 miles for 12km all uphill....but that is sustained climbing on a pretty constant grade....and you definitely notice a difference between 10% and 12% and 15%. If these are little short hills and the grade is 10% and lower then they are going to be able to move pretty fast still (i.e. 5:30 pace or faster up the hills....maybe 4:30-4:25 pace or faster on the downhills). Depends on the caliber of runner though.

My calculator shows 5:30 pace at 10% incline is equal to 3:48 pace. The 10% hill is 125 meters long. That comes out to a 16 second sprint at 57 second quarter pace.

If you were running a flat 10k at 4:35 pace, would you speed up to sub 60 pace for 16 seconds 5 times during the race?

I think the runners that do that will get dropped the last couple laps.

My research shows that the top runners are averaging 435 on flatter courses so I would project sub 4 pace going down the steepest hill. What would be neat is if they had timing mats at the bottom and top of the hill and on the bottom of the other side.

The Crim does this on the steep hill just past 5 miles.

S. Canaday wrote:

If these are little short hills and the grade is 10% and lower then they are going to be able to move pretty fast still (i.e. 5:30 pace or faster up the hills....maybe 4:30-4:25 pace or faster on the downhills). Depends on the caliber of runner though.

You're greatly underestimating the downhill speed the fast guys will be going. These are short descents, since the entire loop is only 2K and the world class guys could do 4:25 for miles even on flats. I remember watch college cross country one time at Stanford (maybe PAC-10s?), and the leader went out at 4:24 for the flattish first mile. These guys will be rolling sub-4 pace on 50m-300m stretches of downhill for sure. I hit 4:30 pace, maybe faster, all the time on short downhills on similar XC-like local races, as an out of shape masters guy. Walmsley did 4:20s sustained for 5K downhill in training as part of a longish run.

Start out and find a rhythm.

If you have an opportunity to pass on a hill, do it.

Then put more distance on your competition as you go downhill.

Maintain your rhythm on the flats.

I think you're a little off with those paces. Congrats on being able to sprint downhill for 50m at sub 4:00 mile pace. They are not going to average 4:25 pace on that course... Yeah, , maaaaybe they hit sub 4:00 pace for a very short stretch of 50m-100m....but I'm taking into account that they are hitting the uphills hard right beforehand and these downhills may be on some rough grass/dirt/mud or ramps. You watched a college cross country meet once? Cool story. I ran at NCAA DI Nationals in cross country (got my butt kicked) and remember Rupp and the lead pack taking it out in 2:04-2:02 or so for the first 800m....but of course they didn't hold that (Rupp actually lost that year). I am well aware of the kinds of paces run in cross country races.

S. Canaday wrote:

I think you're a little off with those paces. Congrats on being able to sprint downhill for 50m at sub 4:00 mile pace. They are not going to average 4:25 pace on that course...

Yeah, , maaaaybe they hit sub 4:00 pace for a very short stretch of 50m-100m....but I'm taking into account that they are hitting the uphills hard right beforehand and these downhills may be on some rough grass/dirt/mud or ramps.

You watched a college cross country meet once? Cool story. I ran at NCAA DI Nationals in cross country (got my butt kicked) and remember Rupp and the lead pack taking it out in 2:04-2:02 or so for the first 800m....but of course they didn't hold that (Rupp actually lost that year). I am well aware of the kinds of paces run in cross country races.

You say that I'm a little off with those paces, yet agree they might hit sub-4 for short stretches? That's exactly what I'm saying, they're going to hit sub-4 for short stretches . I'm not talking kilo splits, I'm talking what speed you'd see if you had a radar gun on them.

And don't be a prick, I'm not talking about sprinting downhill for 50m-100m to say I can, it's what I've observed when I've run my local races doing my normal stategy. That is to go at least as hard on the downhills as uphills, since I'm relatively better at downhills and gain more advantage that way. I've won the said local XC-like races dropping people on those steep 100m downhills on the run in to the finish. That I can do that is exactly why I know the best XC runners in the world are going to be rolling sub-4 pace on the downhills, especially at the break.

wejo said: This is by FAR the most difficult XC course I've ever seen.

in Epping Forest near Chigwell in Essex in what you would probably consider to be North London in England, there is a race known as the Orion 15. it is what it says on the box, a 15-mile cross-country race through woods, water-filled ditches, muddy ponds, up and down hills and over open fields. it has been run over the same course each March for over 50 years (first run in 1954). it is hosted by Orion Harriers and the entries fill up pretty quickly so you have to be sharp to get in but, having run serious cross-country for over 20 years in my youth, including several different leagues, up to and including the national championship and running abroad in military cross-country championships I can say that no one can really say they know what cross country is until they have run the Orion 15. I thought I knew but the Orion opened my eyes. the first year I ran it two of my club mates lost shoes on the course.

cheers.

Nice. From my encounters with Team GB, I hear that there are some really good XC courses, as well as Fell racing. I gotta fly over and try that one day :)

The hill guru..... wrote:

My prediction of the winning time is

31:39

Winning time was 31:40!!!!!

The hill calculator I use is pretty accurate.