Pounding out Lots of Vertical Gain - Any Benefits?

I did a run in the Mt. Jeff national forest Saturday which climbed/lost 1400 feet and then Sunday another adventure run up the PCT which climbed 3K feet in 4 miles. my quads have felt like crap since Monday. no idea if that has helped.

How do you pound uphill?

"Hill work is speed work in disguise" - some runner

slow pace reduces the muscular stress. The high heart rate leads to improvement. Spend a couple months running up and down mountains then run on a flat course and see how you feel. Yes, there is a benefit.

Edward Teach wrote:

slow pace reduces the muscular stress. The high heart rate leads to improvement. Spend a couple months running up and down mountains then run on a flat course and see how you feel. Yes, there is a benefit.

But what about the idea that training at a consistently high heart rate doesn't allow you to recover and benefit from workouts? And what about the idea of skill specificity? Wouldn't people who want to be better road racers be better suited to training on regular roads, rather than constantly seeking out hills?

I'm not asking rhetorically. I genuinely am seeking answers to these questions.

altview wrote:

"Hill work is speed work in disguise" - some runner

Chuck Smead? plus many others as well.

Personally I've found steep hills to be stunting to speed, though this is overcome by faster running on the flats, thus a good combination.

In moderation it will help.

Just keep in mind that unless you're on a treadmill, what goes up must come down. Downhill running can be extremely risky, as it puts a huge amount of stress on your body. (I'm talking about 1000ft+ in a single run) Hurts your quads and knees especially.

This winter I'm thinking I might tie a butt sled to my back, run up mountains, and then sled down.

I've done up to about 25000 vert in a week before (over ~90 miles). There's a big, big difference between occasionally running a big climb and pounding out vert every single day. Even when training specifically for steep mountain races (Speedgoat 50k), I think there's still a great need to not train over-zealously, purely on steep terrain. I've actually felt my best in the mountains closely following periods of mostly flat, faster running, with a week or so mixing in some climbing to set up the different musculature. When looking at it from the opposite direction, running flatter terrain following a period of mountain running is terrible. It takes me at least a week or two to regain the turnover to run quickly, and the way the muscles are used differently really makes things difficult. I think there's certainly some benefit to throwing a big climb in here and there, because like someone mentioned it does really rev the heart up without crushing the legs (so long as you're careful on the down), and i find trail runs with short ups and downs make great natural fartleks, but in general pounding out a thousand or more gain in a day every day for weeks takes a toll and holistically slows you down. Hopefully Sage chimes in.

^ This sounds pretty much spot on

3000 feet of climb is not a big climb. A big climb is 5000 - 6000 feet of climb.

Nop200 wrote:

Just keep in mind that unless you're on a treadmill, what goes up must come down. Downhill running can be extremely risky, as it puts a huge amount of stress on your body. (I'm talking about 1000ft+ in a single run) Hurts your quads and knees especially.

Going really fast safely at running downhills is trainable. I'm older (46), but I like to fly downhills. On a recent run on something I often train on, I went 5.4 miles and 2200 ft up (with 40 ft down near the beginning, average about 7 percent grade) at 8:51 pace, then turned around and did the 5.4 miles and 2200 ft down (and 40 ft up) at 5:07 pace. On the downhill, I covered 1K in 2:53, 1 mile in 4:49, 5 miles in 25:20, before that final 40 ft uphill slowed the overall pace to 5:07. My quads were 100% like normal at the bottom, and my knees also 100% fine. With good form, the stress is absorbed by the muscles, not the joints. And apparently not too much with the quads when you are going that fast. I don't have a pounding sensation when running fast downhill. When I do feel like I'm pounding on a downhill, it's because my weight it too far back and I'm braking more than trying to go fast.

In the local XC series, I have much better downhill speed compared to the other guys around me with slightly better uphill fitness. I am often blowing by people at sub-4 pace according to my GPS (saw 3:45 pace last week). My average training pace, due to the elevation gain and trails I run on is only 10 to 11 minute pace on average, so you don't necessarily lose speed with tons of climbing/descending if you also go fast on some of the downhills.

I can only speak of my experience(I'm a mastes runner who races road half marathons and trail 50 k's and 50 mile races); I like to alternate training for flat road halfs and hilly trail races. I live in an area where I have to drive in order to do runs without significant elevation gain, it's hard for me to do a run from home with less than 1500 -2000ft of gain. With a career and family, I generally run from home.

Running up and down hills all the time makes me strong both physically and cardiovascularly. I can hang with people a lot faster than me on couses with significant gain. However, it doesn't make me faster on the flats. The good news is that I seem to be able to get the turnover back with a 6 to 8 week block of training where I focus on speed and tempos on flat courses. Running faster on pancake flat terrain is harder for me--I get more sore and mentally it's a grind.

Ideally, I think mixing up lots of hilly runs and doing faster runs on flat courses is ideal so you develop both types of skill sets. Otherwise, you become a one trick pony.

That's some seriously impressive downhill running ability. I've been trying to get better at it for the past two years, but really haven't made any progress. Also I've been running down mountains practically all my life, still get sore.

I wonder if there is some genetic reason for this. I know my form is terrible going downhill, but as soon as I get even moderately fatigued I loose all control and just can't move my legs fast enough.

Anyways, it differs for different people. Just something to be wary of.

Blah Blah Blah wrote:

3000 feet of climb is not a big climb. A big climb is 5000 - 6000 feet of climb.

Depends on the climb. I live near the Black Mountain range in western NC. We have trails that climb 3200-3400' feet. One, Woody Ridge trail, climbs the vert in 2.2 miles. Bowlens Creek trail does the same in 4.5 miles as does Colbert's Ridge trail. The Buncombe Horse trail stretches that out over 6.5 miles.

Woody Ridge will kill you. It's literally four points of contact, hand over root climbing at some points. Buncombe Horse is also steep, but is almost all entirely runnable.

J.R. wrote:

altview wrote:

"Hill work is speed work in disguise" - some runner

Chuck Smead? plus many others as well.

Personally I've found steep hills to be stunting to speed, though this is overcome by faster running on the flats, thus a good combination.

I am fairly sure that Frank Shorter said it.

It was Frank. J.R. is only wrong every time he touches a keyboard.

Long, fairly steep hills can be very therapeutic when your hard days are on the roads or track. I forgot this one season and stopped my weekend long slow trail run. By the end of the season I had a brutal achilles problem that lingered for years.

Chuck Smead was well known for his hard running in the hills, whereas

Shorter's thing was slow high mileage, and short fast workouts on the track.

"Shorter's thing was slow high mileage"????

Are you out of your mind? Have you ever spoken with Shorter about his training!? His bread and butter was 20 miles or 2hrs, whichever was first, many times it was a 50-min second half 10 miles, and that's only his long run. He was always cutting down to near MP on his regular 10/10 days and then had some hellacious track work. His only easy running was doubles on track days.

COJL wrote:

"Shorter's thing was slow high mileage"????

Are you out of your mind? Have you ever spoken with Shorter about his training!? His bread and butter was 20 miles or 2hrs, whichever was first, many times it was a 50-min second half 10 miles, and that's only his long run. He was always cutting down to near MP on his regular 10/10 days and then had some hellacious track work. His only easy running was doubles on track days.

You clearly have no idea what you´re talking about.