hill work

Probably best to keep the hill workouts to your non-race weeks. They can sometimes zap the legs for races.

Also, you might want to re-check that grade. Methinks you have no idea what a 30-35% grade looks like, nor would you be running up something that steep.

Thank You. It is an hill that goes from the river to an upper parking lot. I am going there today and will check elevation with GPS. Should I not do hills that steep,and why ? I do that one because it is the longest hill that is off the main roads.

help here wrote:

Thank You. It is an hill that goes from the river to an upper parking lot.

It is ***a hill

You're probalby fine doing that hill. I was just pointing out that 30-35% is ridiculously steep, so I doubted whatever you were running up was actually that steep. 15% is the max most treadmills go, which is quite steep, for comparison purposes. For the kind of repeats you're doing, 6% is probably plenty.

I wouldn't worry too much about what % grade the hill is. Anything that makes you work hard, but allows you to run with a decent stride (not too short and choppy) will work fine.

As to what you should and shouldn't do, it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your workout. Here is a great video on different hill workouts that serve different purposes.

It sounds like you are doing long hill repeats. He covers these at the 3:56 point in the video. The whole video is excellent, and worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDcXPIT380k

It is ***a hill.............. I was just trying to point out why it was so steep. There isn't a lot of hill choices where I live.

You ain't running up 30% grade mate...

You are probably right, now that I am actually trying to figure it out. It is steeper than any regular roads that we drive on around here. I am going to measure the elavation rise as I already know the distance. Still the idea is the same.

help here wrote:

You are probably right, now that I am actually trying to figure it out. It is steeper than any regular roads that we drive on around here. I am going to measure the elavation rise as I already know the distance. Still the idea is the same.

What is your age and how fast is your mile time? If you need a coaching post your e-mail.

That video is stupid, they barely even go up a hill,those hills are weak.

OK, the hill I have been doing has an 84ft rise in about 1/5 of a mile. It is steep and I don't know the angle. I ran it last night 10 times at 1:15 with recovery on the way down. I then did some 4 min change of pace runs for about 20 minutes. So I still have the question as to how many days this kind of work out might affect me for an 5k? I have only done five 5k races and still trying to understand. I know that it is supposed to be about 10 plus days to benefit from work outs. Do you coaches really believe that racing three days after running hills will slow my 5k time down?

84/1056~8%

On the other hand I actually do get to go up a hill that's anywhere from 30-60% grade.

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/2990/71787446391079102531329.jpg

Not sure how useful it would be as a training hill (there is a non-step road part of similar steepness coming up to the parking lot), but its a good strength workout every once in a while.