Elevation gain per week is superior to training by mileage or time

Vert isn't Real!

hills are the key wrote:

Taking me out of context. I'm not saying not to do speed work or fast stuff over flat terrain in training. I'm talking about for easy mileage focus on elevation gain vs miles or time.

Seems like you are qualifying your statement to mean ultra runners should run lots of vertical in their easy run miles.

Maybe, but most people do not run hilly ultras.

If you do you speed work/fast stuff on your hard days you need to recover on your easy days so you can run hard on your next hard day.

Doing a lot of vert on your easy day runs is not recovery, The downhills especially can beat up your legs.

My boring take is that you vary it for your goals. If you're a track athlete then a lot of hill work is pointless, maybe a little for strength early season (Canova hills).

For road runners, more elevation is helpful, you need to be ready even for mildly undulating courses. I do all my tempo work on undulating routes to get used to modulating effort and pace. It's a more reliable guide to your racing condition than clicking off consistent laps on a track

kipchoge dont care about vert. wrote:

They don’t give a s*** about “vert” in Africa lol. That’s a Western world, Strava, ego-driven concept.

Just because you haven't heard of vertical feet climbed till strava came around doesn't mean it's a useless training measurement. And the east afircans do a lot of vertical climbing i.e. all the hills they run. Just because you hear a new training term doesn't mean you should have a boomer moment and reject it.

When I got fitter, I noticed I got up hills a lot easier. It was the first tell-tale sign that I had improved. Now whenever I encounter a hill during a regular run I always speed up as it gets my heart rate up into the 160s. I haven't done any hill sessions in a long time but it's something I've considered as I feel like my tempo runs don't achieve anything.

Go ahead and do your 7 milers w/ 1500 feet of vert on easy days and I’ll do 12 w/300 feet of vert and we will see how we stack up.

crm023 wrote:

hills are the key wrote:

Ever heard of Henry Rono, and Jousha Cheptegei?

I'm pretty sure Henry Rono did huge amounts of track intervals, and I'm pretty sure he didn't structure his training so as to maximize elevation gained.

If you’re having a hard time connecting Rono to hills..... you might be new here

epicTCK wrote:

crm023 wrote:

I'm pretty sure Henry Rono did huge amounts of track intervals, and I'm pretty sure he didn't structure his training so as to maximize elevation gained.

If you’re having a hard time connecting Rono to hills..... you might be new here

"DA HEEL, ANY HEEL"

Ultra guy I know does lots of vert. One day he dropped a 2:46 marathon out of the blue, when most of his training was 9:00 pace on steep trails.

Vert works.. for some, and only so much. I'd still destroy that guy in a 5K.

I went from running 150 miles a week 0m elevation a week for 5 years to 5500m a week 100 miles a week. After a couple months I thought I must be crazy fit as my heart rate felt like a 5K race every day. My heart rate up the hills was 180 an hour everyday. No flat areas just steep rolling hills.

Then after 4 months I go on the track and I was slow as hell! I couldn't run fast my legs just couldn't turn over it felt so weird running.

Then I travelled to my own flat city for 2 weeks and after 5 runs on the flat roads I got my turnnover back and I was flying! The flats felt so easy compared to the hills I was going from 3:10/km 1K repeats to 2:47/km and easy runs from 4:20 to 3:55/km.

So in my experience you gotta do both because running hills you do not practice your flat running mechanics. You can get mega fit on hills but it can be for nothing if you don't practice running fast on the flats.

That's absolutely cap. I spent all of high school training primarily on hills, making significant elevation gain every week. When I went to college, my training switched to primarily flats and small rolling hills. I subsequently improved worlds beyond what I was ever capable of in high school. I still mix in some hills every week to mix it up and strengthen my legs more, but for running, hilly running is incredibly inefficient for fitness gains.

If what you say were true, then Cheptegei, Kipchoge, Barega, Kandie, Kiplimo, and the like would all be training on hills predominantly. Guess what they train on in reality? Flats and rollers.

Elevation gain is # 1 for me but nothing beats time.

Elevation gain is the ultimate testament of the cardiovascular system. And elevation gain will make you a faster sprinter as well.

Like I wrote, elevation gain is and always has been my priority but ... still ... time is a dimension in and of itself and one cannot accelerate time. Your limbs, muscles, veins and heart will not understand manmade concepts such as miles, kilometers and feet but it will always comprehend time spent exhausting the human body.

bugattiaron wrote:

That's absolutely cap. I spent all of high school training primarily on hills, making significant elevation gain every week. When I went to college, my training switched to primarily flats and small rolling hills. I subsequently improved worlds beyond what I was ever capable of in high school. I still mix in some hills every week to mix it up and strengthen my legs more, but for running, hilly running is incredibly inefficient for fitness gains.

If what you say were true, then Cheptegei, Kipchoge, Barega, Kandie, Kiplimo, and the like would all be training on hills predominantly. Guess what they train on in reality? Flats and rollers.

Check Cheptegei Instagram and look up other East Africans training.

From Cheptegei coach on training, he does less mileage because of how hilly his environment.

Can't find the article now, but one of his main workouts leading up to world xc was a 4km tempo up hill and back. Might be off a little on how long it was.

Bump

I read something by David Roche(an ultra coach) that resonated with me:

Train like a trail runner on the weekend(hills/very trails,etc) but like a road runner during the week.

flat terrain running economy translates better to hill running than vice versa. But running lots of hills will give you strength that can later be used to build speed. However, if you just focus on running hills all the time, you will become strong but slow. Best is to vary your training.

Last year I researched successful high school programs in my home state of California. Besides the obvious NP program, one other program really caught my eye. That was San Luis Obispo HS. They managed to win a D2 state title despite having only 1568 students at their school (which is a D3/D4 size school in most sections).

It turns out they run tons of hills. They frequently would get over 3k of feet gained per week despite modest mileage totals.

This whole season I have been focusing on hill training for my athletes and have eliminated weight training altogether. The results have been remarkable. I highly recommend more hill training.

Hills are strength training in disguise.

So just go hiking every day and you don’t have to run at all to get fast.

And down hill running can be sprint work in disguise with half the effort.