How do you really do hill training?

Run up hills.

Since you mentioned Mutai, I will give you advice from a Kenyan standpoint.Run up "The hill. Any hill."Find a hilly area, run it. If you want to do hill reps, run up and walk down for a fixed period of time so that you don't have to count how many times. Say 30 min. Or 60 min. Maybe a good 200-800m stretch. Run up it. Then, turnaround and walk down. Do it again.I'm lucky in that I live in a very hilly area. I can't really avoid running 100m of elevation gain even when I'm trying for a flat, easy run. If I do long runs it's not uncommon for me to hit 200-500m of elevation gain without even thinking about it.

youth.in.revolt wrote:

I've never really done hills training, but have spent many years doing road tempo runs and track workouts.

I'm reading Two Hours by Ed Caesar and was struck by Geoffrey Mutai saying that he prefers to do hill workouts because he thinks they "stay in your legs longer" (paraphrase).

How, exactly, does one incorporate hills into training? If one's using the Jack Daniels paradigm for training -- ie: threshold, intervals, reps, etc. -- which of those do repeat hills most resemble? And at what point in training is a workout of repeat hills most effective? (early on, base building? early season workouts? closer to peak races?)

I've always wondered about this since Lydiard advocated doing tons of hills and people always talk about it -- soooo, what say you? How does one best incorporate hills training?

"Anything done to excess is bad."

Bill Walsh, SF 49ers HOF Coach

Use a progressive periodization program. Lydiard has a good one that you can find on the internet in many places.

It is possible to over train.

Include speed development in your program. Ryan Hall, 2:04 marathoner did this very early on in his development and all the way through his career because his Dad was his high school coach.

One must use the gray matter between the ears as much as any other part of the body.

Get back to me if you agree on the above and have questions.

Jed Clampett

30 year teacher-coach, current writer about all levels of CC and T&F.

Jed Clampett wrote:

"Anything done to excess is bad."

Bill Walsh, SF 49ers HOF Coach

.

Including rest/recovery

I do them 8-10 months out of the year, every 7-10 days.

I sprint up a hill for 8-12 seconds, recover (not running) about 3-5 minutes, and do this 6-10 times.

Sorta like maxing out on a bench. You have to be continually getting better at the simple act of fast turnover and longer stride. All your mileage, tempos, and intervals help to make your 100th, 200th, or 3000th stride be more similar to that one you perfect with hills.

"sprint up a hill for 8-12 seconds, recover (not running) about 3-5 minutes, and do this 6-10 times"

you are some weak dude. do 40-50 sec, recover 1 min instead. every 3 days.

bvb wrote:

"sprint up a hill for 8-12 seconds, recover (not running) about 3-5 minutes, and do this 6-10 times"

you are some weak dude. do 40-50 sec, recover 1 min instead. every 3 days.

Those workouts are training totally different things.

Find a big hill. Sprint up the hill, then slowly shuffle jog down. Right when you get to the bottom repeat it again. Do this until you can't move anymore.

I've found things like 40 second hill sprints wholly dispiriting. Soul crushing. They are probably really good for developing a kick...but I am an age grouper road racer. I don't need to kick.

But I do race in hills so I need to train for them.

I've found just doing standard workouts in hills helps road racing a lot. Do the 6 x 800, but do them in hills. Up, over, down. Use a gps watch. A loop is great - don't worry if you're going hard up or hard down. Road races go down too.

I've been getting huge benefits from this.

If you are doing long hills you really need to "spin" back down the hill.

Walking or shuffling is way too much recovery and the wrong kind of recovery.

A half mile walk downhill takes forever.

Hills are perfect opportunity to practice using lactate while still running fast. That's key to fast racing.

I have a theory too wrote:

Jed Clampett wrote:

"Anything done to excess is bad."

Bill Walsh, SF 49ers HOF Coach

.

Including rest/recovery

Of course. The quote does start with the word anything. But where it falls short is in the word excess. Excess is a subjective value to be argued by all LRC for eternity.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

I do them 8-10 months out of the year, every 7-10 days.

I sprint up a hill for 8-12 seconds, recover (not running) about 3-5 minutes, and do this 6-10 times.

Sorta like maxing out on a bench. You have to be continually getting better at the simple act of fast turnover and longer stride. All your mileage, tempos, and intervals help to make your 100th, 200th, or 3000th stride be more similar to that one you perfect with hills.

That could be a 50 minute workout with 2 minutes of actual hill sprinting

just sayin wrote:

Lenny Leonard wrote:

I do them 8-10 months out of the year, every 7-10 days.

I sprint up a hill for 8-12 seconds, recover (not running) about 3-5 minutes, and do this 6-10 times.

Sorta like maxing out on a bench. You have to be continually getting better at the simple act of fast turnover and longer stride. All your mileage, tempos, and intervals help to make your 100th, 200th, or 3000th stride be more similar to that one you perfect with hills.

That could be a 50 minute workout with 2 minutes of actual hill sprinting

So? That's the way it needs to be done.

OK thanks for sharing then

Antonio wrote:

Find a big hill. Sprint up the hill, then slowly shuffle jog down. Right when you get to the bottom repeat it again. Do this until you can't move anymore.

How do you get home?

agip wrote:

But I do race in hills so I need to train for them.

I've found just doing standard workouts in hills helps road racing a lot. Do the 6 x 800, but do them in hills. Up, over, down. Use a gps watch. A loop is great - don't worry if you're going hard up or hard down. Road races go down too.

I've been getting huge benefits from this.

Me too. For 6+ months I've done all my running on hills except for a handful of workouts on the track. All the tempo runs, lots of 5K/10K pace repeats, even all the long runs and the recovery runs are on hills (because that's all there is around here). I'm an age grouper too, but I dropped my 5K time by 90 seconds this way and finished top 3 in my last two 5Ks. And they weren't tiny 5Ks, either - but they were on hilly courses.

bvb wrote:

"sprint up a hill for 8-12 seconds, recover (not running) about 3-5 minutes, and do this 6-10 times"

you are some weak dude. do 40-50 sec, recover 1 min instead. every 3 days.

I think Renato Canova could teach you a thing or two about training.

What about treadmill workouts? Have the advantage to set up any desired grade and pace but even more importantly you don't need to run down.

Can someone share good hill workouts on treadmill for the half of full marathon? Longer stuff

youth.in.revolt wrote:

How, exactly, does one incorporate hills into training? If one's using the Jack Daniels paradigm for training -- ie: threshold, intervals, reps, etc. -- which of those do repeat hills most resemble? And at what point in training is a workout of repeat hills most effective? (early on, base building? early season workouts? closer to peak races?)

My two cents:

This is for a 16 week high school build up for kids running 800-3000m. This progression is influenced by the area we have to train in. No 800m hills in a reasonable proximity - we have a steep ~75m hill and a fairly steep ~300m hill.

First 4 weeks - use hill sprints - start with 6-8 x ~10". They should be as fast as possible on the steepest hill you can find. Focus on mechanics. Walk back down + 1' rest. Do a long warm-up before. Progress to 12-14 x ~10".

Second 4 weeks - use hill sprints intermittently as maintenance but not as a stand-alone workout. The main hill workout is now 8-10 x ~30" repeats - run them at "~90%" max speed. Rest is leisurely walk down + 1' rest, but don't go again until your breathing is 'normal.' Do this for a couple weeks, then bump up to 6-8 x 40-45" repeats, and make the rest walk down + 2' rest with the same rule about breathing - it works out to a 40" hill repeat on a ~5' cycle. The idea here is to allow the anaerobic systems to recover between each repeat. Make sure you are doing plenty of aerobic development in your other training.

Third 4 weeks - continue using hill sprints as maintenance. Now you can decide to move these workouts to the track or continue on the hill. The 6-8 x 40" workout could progress to 5-6x300m on the track for example. I would make this decision depending on the athlete. If they are focusing more on the 800 and have good speed I would move to the track. If they are not particularly fast, keep with hill reps. If they can get up to 8x40" reps, see if they can increase the speed and do 8x39" to the same point.

Final 4 weeks - again, focus on the individual. If they are running great, stick with the hills. If they seem a little flat, move to the track. Keep the hill sprints as maintenance.