What can I do to improve at my hill running late in a race without actually running hills during practice. We dont have many hills by our school so I dont get to run on any too often.
What can I do to improve at my hill running late in a race without actually running hills during practice. We dont have many hills by our school so I dont get to run on any too often.
Do you have hills somewhere in the area? Can you drive to a place with hills on the weekend and do a nice distance run up/down some hills?
Do many of the courses you race on have hills? If so, you can always do workouts on those courses--5-8x1000m repeats (depending on age, fitness, strength, experience), or simply run the course a couple of times.
If you do a fair amount of racing on hilly courses, but don't get much hill work in, talk to your coach and express your concern. It's possible he/she is already thinking about how to get some hillwork in, but needs some pushing from the athletes to make the effort to get them in.
This is a legitimate question. I can think of a few things offhand that help.
1. Be in good shape! Nick Rose (a runner from my era) was renowned for being tough on hills, but rarely trained on them. He was very, very fit, however.
2. More specifically, any strength training you do for legs should help on the uphills. High-intensity runs (sprints) build leg strength, as do weightlifting exercises.
Core (midsection) strength will help on both uphills and downhills by keeping your trunk from curling forward or backward, thus allowing more of your energy to go to propelling you forward and reducing braking forces on downhills.
3. Speaking of downhills, you should strive to keep your feet "under" you when running down, rather than allowing them to shoot ahead and land well in front of your center of mass. You should attempt to stay perpendicular to the downslope, rather than leaning back--this helps reduce the jarring, braking forces that can leave you beat up at the bottom of a hill.
Granted, staying perpendicular is easier said than done, particularly late in a tough race. However, staying relaxed (and, again, good core strength) should help.
4. A good mindset--one of "flowing" the hills, rather than fighting them--is a real asset. Think about what happens often at the top of tough hills: guys who've been fightin'-and-dyin' all the way up come practically to a standstill. This makes no sense!--at the top of a hill it's flat, so it should be *easier* to run and you should speed up when you get there! Try to work *with* the hill, rather than fight it, and it will seem more natural to speed up when you get to the top.
Also: At the top of a big hill, you may feel like death for a few seconds. But you're going to feel bad no matter what--regardless of whether you run fast or stand still--so why not run fast? At least you're *doing* something, instead of taking time to feel sorry for yourself.
Just by maintaining this mental alertness at the top of the hill (and seeing the hill as only one part of your race, rather than a race in itself), a lot of times you can gain five meters on guys who killed themselves all the way up the hill and maybe gained a meter on you.
4. Your arms can help in several ways. First, on uphills an emphasis on the *backward* swing of your elbows will help move you up efficiently.
Second, at the top when you're switching from uphill mode to faster running, several quick steps (think "quick elbows") will help you shift gears immediately.
Third, if your legs feel dead then switch your brain ENTIRELY from your legs to your arms--again, especially emphasizing the quick backward strokes of your relaxed elbows--and let the arms "carry" the legs. This really works!
I think the biggest thing is not to distort your overall race plan to accommodate individual hills--even the hills on a course like Sunken Meadow! Always keep your overall race in mind. Be in shape for that, and you should be okay on the hills.
I go on a treadmill, crank it up to 6% grade and do 30 mins of my med. distance runs (11-12 miles) on there at a solid pace.Then i go outside and do the rest of my run.
Stair work at the end of a tempo or something would be good. Or running up a parking grage. But what you really need to do is move.
Stairs work well, any large stadiums in the area? Basketball arenas work well too, even buildings like Rocky did.
slave of required education wrote:
I go on a treadmill, crank it up to 6% grade and do 30 mins of my med. distance runs (11-12 miles) on there at a solid pace.Then i go outside and do the rest of my run.
Dr Daniels advocates doing hillwork on treadmills in order to eliminate the downhills which can cause injuries. Typical sessions can be 30-60 efforts on quite a steep gradient and slowish speed. This can be done in pairs with equal recovery/effort. One of the benefits of treadmill hills is that progress is measurable over time, effort is controllable and other factors like weather/traffic conditions are eradicated.
lease wrote:
This is a legitimate question. I can think of a few things offhand that help.
1. Be in good shape! Nick Rose (a runner from my era) was renowned for being tough on hills, but rarely trained on them. He was very, very fit, however.
2. More specifically, any strength training you do for legs should help on the uphills. High-intensity runs (sprints) build leg strength, as do weightlifting exercises.
Core (midsection) strength will help on both uphills and downhills by keeping your trunk from curling forward or backward, thus allowing more of your energy to go to propelling you forward and reducing braking forces on downhills.
3. Speaking of downhills, you should strive to keep your feet "under" you when running down, rather than allowing them to shoot ahead and land well in front of your center of mass. You should attempt to stay perpendicular to the downslope, rather than leaning back--this helps reduce the jarring, braking forces that can leave you beat up at the bottom of a hill.
Granted, staying perpendicular is easier said than done, particularly late in a tough race. However, staying relaxed (and, again, good core strength) should help.
4. A good mindset--one of "flowing" the hills, rather than fighting them--is a real asset. Think about what happens often at the top of tough hills: guys who've been fightin'-and-dyin' all the way up come practically to a standstill. This makes no sense!--at the top of a hill it's flat, so it should be *easier* to run and you should speed up when you get there! Try to work *with* the hill, rather than fight it, and it will seem more natural to speed up when you get to the top.
Also: At the top of a big hill, you may feel like death for a few seconds. But you're going to feel bad no matter what--regardless of whether you run fast or stand still--so why not run fast? At least you're *doing* something, instead of taking time to feel sorry for yourself.
Just by maintaining this mental alertness at the top of the hill (and seeing the hill as only one part of your race, rather than a race in itself), a lot of times you can gain five meters on guys who killed themselves all the way up the hill and maybe gained a meter on you.
4. Your arms can help in several ways. First, on uphills an emphasis on the *backward* swing of your elbows will help move you up efficiently.
Second, at the top when you're switching from uphill mode to faster running, several quick steps (think "quick elbows") will help you shift gears immediately.
Third, if your legs feel dead then switch your brain ENTIRELY from your legs to your arms--again, especially emphasizing the quick backward strokes of your relaxed elbows--and let the arms "carry" the legs. This really works!
I think the biggest thing is not to distort your overall race plan to accommodate individual hills--even the hills on a course like Sunken Meadow! Always keep your overall race in mind. Be in shape for that, and you should be okay on the hills.
This is a really really good post, I just have a couple things to add, or maybe just re-emphasize.
Running economy is really important on hills, much more so then on a flat surface. Because of this, I want to restate the importance of leg strength, most specifically the big upper leg muscles. I would do lots of lunges and one leg squats (ask your coach about these). The best thing you can do about hills without running on them is to be really fit, and really strong. Then, after you get really fit and strong, on a really hilly course you need to resist the temptation to charge hills early. You should instead make a conscious effort to relax on hills early in the race and be ok with giving up a little ground early. This is something that will bay back exponentially later in a race. Not many people know this, I've raced cross country on every level short of the world championships, and have seen countless extremely talented runners go by me early on hills only to roll them back up in the last 1000 or so meters or on late hills due to my superior approach early in the race. Patience is a rare virtue in distance runners (it didn't and still doesn't come natuarally to me) but especially on the high school level, if you can learn this lesson you will have a huge advantage over runners of equal talent.
running stairs....where ever you can find them. interval stairs.
lease wrote:
This is a legitimate question. I can think of a few things offhand that help.
1. Be in good shape! Nick Rose (a runner from my era) was renowned for being tough on hills, but rarely trained on them. He was very, very fit, however.
2. More specifically, any strength training you do for legs should help on the uphills. High-intensity runs (sprints) build leg strength, as do weightlifting exercises.
Core (midsection) strength will help on both uphills and downhills by keeping your trunk from curling forward or backward, thus allowing more of your energy to go to propelling you forward and reducing braking forces on downhills.
3. Speaking of downhills, you should strive to keep your feet "under" you when running down, rather than allowing them to shoot ahead and land well in front of your center of mass. You should attempt to stay perpendicular to the downslope, rather than leaning back--this helps reduce the jarring, braking forces that can leave you beat up at the bottom of a hill.
Granted, staying perpendicular is easier said than done, particularly late in a tough race. However, staying relaxed (and, again, good core strength) should help.
4. A good mindset--one of "flowing" the hills, rather than fighting them--is a real asset. Think about what happens often at the top of tough hills: guys who've been fightin'-and-dyin' all the way up come practically to a standstill. This makes no sense!--at the top of a hill it's flat, so it should be *easier* to run and you should speed up when you get there! Try to work *with* the hill, rather than fight it, and it will seem more natural to speed up when you get to the top.
Also: At the top of a big hill, you may feel like death for a few seconds. But you're going to feel bad no matter what--regardless of whether you run fast or stand still--so why not run fast? At least you're *doing* something, instead of taking time to feel sorry for yourself.
Just by maintaining this mental alertness at the top of the hill (and seeing the hill as only one part of your race, rather than a race in itself), a lot of times you can gain five meters on guys who killed themselves all the way up the hill and maybe gained a meter on you.
4. Your arms can help in several ways. First, on uphills an emphasis on the *backward* swing of your elbows will help move you up efficiently.
Second, at the top when you're switching from uphill mode to faster running, several quick steps (think "quick elbows") will help you shift gears immediately.
Third, if your legs feel dead then switch your brain ENTIRELY from your legs to your arms--again, especially emphasizing the quick backward strokes of your relaxed elbows--and let the arms "carry" the legs. This really works!
I think the biggest thing is not to distort your overall race plan to accommodate individual hills--even the hills on a course like Sunken Meadow! Always keep your overall race in mind. Be in shape for that, and you should be okay on the hills.
thanks for the help and I have a feeling you know me. Anyways, I live near hills but not many are by my school. I race hilly courses all the time so I need to be good at them. I have done very little speed work(anything faster than 5k pace-I consider speed work) so that could be a reason. I ran some hills today by my house since its a day off. I worked the hills too but now my hamstrings are even more sore.
thanks for the help.
Stength training.
I live in Iowa and there are no hills.
I strength train quite a bit and find hill are not much of a problem. If you know how to run them with good running technique as the above posters have given.
got any parking garages in your area???
lease wrote:
This is a legitimate question. I can think of a few things offhand that help.
1. Be in good shape! Nick Rose (a runner from my era) was renowned for being tough on hills, but rarely trained on them. He was very, very fit, however.
2. More specifically, any strength training you do for legs should help on the uphills. High-intensity runs (sprints) build leg strength, as do weightlifting exercises.
Core (midsection) strength will help on both uphills and downhills by keeping your trunk from curling forward or backward, thus allowing more of your energy to go to propelling you forward and reducing braking forces on downhills.
3. Speaking of downhills, you should strive to keep your feet "under" you when running down, rather than allowing them to shoot ahead and land well in front of your center of mass. You should attempt to stay perpendicular to the downslope, rather than leaning back--this helps reduce the jarring, braking forces that can leave you beat up at the bottom of a hill.
Granted, staying perpendicular is easier said than done, particularly late in a tough race. However, staying relaxed (and, again, good core strength) should help.
4. A good mindset--one of "flowing" the hills, rather than fighting them--is a real asset. Think about what happens often at the top of tough hills: guys who've been fightin'-and-dyin' all the way up come practically to a standstill. This makes no sense!--at the top of a hill it's flat, so it should be *easier* to run and you should speed up when you get there! Try to work *with* the hill, rather than fight it, and it will seem more natural to speed up when you get to the top.
Also: At the top of a big hill, you may feel like death for a few seconds. But you're going to feel bad no matter what--regardless of whether you run fast or stand still--so why not run fast? At least you're *doing* something, instead of taking time to feel sorry for yourself.
Just by maintaining this mental alertness at the top of the hill (and seeing the hill as only one part of your race, rather than a race in itself), a lot of times you can gain five meters on guys who killed themselves all the way up the hill and maybe gained a meter on you.
4. Your arms can help in several ways. First, on uphills an emphasis on the *backward* swing of your elbows will help move you up efficiently.
Second, at the top when you're switching from uphill mode to faster running, several quick steps (think "quick elbows") will help you shift gears immediately.
Third, if your legs feel dead then switch your brain ENTIRELY from your legs to your arms--again, especially emphasizing the quick backward strokes of your relaxed elbows--and let the arms "carry" the legs. This really works!
I think the biggest thing is not to distort your overall race plan to accommodate individual hills--even the hills on a course like Sunken Meadow! Always keep your overall race in mind. Be in shape for that, and you should be okay on the hills.
All i did reading this post was picture cardiac hill , which made the last paragraph funny
crazy streaker wrote:
thanks for the help and I have a feeling you know me. ... I ran some hills today by my house since its a day off. I worked the hills too but now my hamstrings are even more sore.
I would be astounded if I knew you. I haven't associated with competitive runners in about ten years or so!
As far as hamstrings: People who run downhills hard/fast, especially without being accustomed to it, sometimes get sore hammies.* Focus on staying perpendicular on the downslope, and let the downhill increase your tempo (stride rate) rather than your stride length.
*I just realized--after all these years--that this is just another part of the conditioning in Lydiard's hill phase--remember he talks about descending by a gentler slope than one ascends by, and he's not acvocating jogging down, either!
Stairs. You can shuffle up hills, but if you shuffle up steps you break your legs.
lease wrote:
*I just realized--after all these years--that this is just another part of the conditioning in Lydiard's hill phase--remember he talks about descending by a gentler slope than one ascends by, and he's not acvocating jogging down, either!
"advocating"
plyos and bounding