Would running a 200-meter hill 6 times at mile race pace effort a few times a week along with running 40 mile s help

Hills give as much benefit as track workouts and even more. So, yes.

Easy to overdo on hills, so cut the reps. Three good reps are likely more useful than six.

As you are recovering from injury, advise walk back recovery, not jog back.

Hills do not replace or match interval training on a track or flat grass or dirt trail. But hills have value nevertheless as preparation and powe development.

Not much value in inclines >4% for running and >12% for walking.

The workout you describe has one serious limitation which will need to be rectified prior to racing.:

Respiratory muscle work is best trained w/ sustained high quality running; a run /walk hill rep much longer than 200m (1500-2000m ) can mitigate this deficiency.

That's the best I can do, with the area I live in. I run them hard, and jog down slow. It seems to help me a lot.

so why did you ask

Hills and Tempo runs have formed the basis for many successful track seasons among athletes that I have coached. The right mix of pace & volume will depend on your fitness, the % grade, and weather conditions.

You work with what you have regarding the % grade. We've used a 250m hill with a 7% grade for years. Early in the winter, we do relatively light sessions running up at tempo effort and down in the same time while focusing on good form. After 3-4 weeks we change over 800/1600 effort. After years of doing this we've found that times for the 250m hill reps are similar to what we would run if we were on the track running 300m reps. We do this once/week for 5-6 weeks. Novices, or those running

Not sure why half my posted was cut off, but maybe it was for the best...

the less than symbol

I believe in effort based. Op is saying about 200 meters. So what if it was 235 meters? Times don't matter on hill work, it's effort!!!! You never see the pro's timing hill reps.

Yes

Getting back in shape wrote:

I don't have the use of a track, and I've been out all do the injury. Will this help me for track?

Hello Getting Back in Shape!

I don't normally do this but feel a need today to respond to this post as my time is a little more free over the holidays.

In today's era of super scientific, subsidized, and sophisticated workouts... (think NOP).... I want to tell you that at the prime of my career 1978-1984 (which wasn't too bad if you bother to look it up).... 12 x 400 up a gradually increasing grade macadam road hill near our family farm was a key cornerstone of my weekly training program from Oct.1 thru April 1. It spanned the first two "quarters" of my 11 month training program... each quarter being 3 months long....except the final one of July-Aug which were my "peak performance months" consisted mainly of big track meets in Europe and a select few US road races like Peachtree, Falmouth, and Maggie Valley.

I never tried them but don't think that running 200 m hill intervals would hurt... except that maybe you should also do some 400 m. hill intervals as well for more strength/endurance. I would warm up 3-4 miles..... then do the hill intervals and time them....running the first 4 on that particular hill from 76-78... the next 4 from 72-75.... the next 3 from 69-71... and the final one all out which was usually 65-68 on any given day. Then, 3-4 mile warm down. The final hill rep felt as hard as a 55-58 final "kick lap" on a flat track workout so you know the effort I expended. So, you can see that I was doing them "negative style"... and my recovery was turning around at the top... walking a few steps to recover from gasping for air... then slowly jogging back downhill until about 10 yards past the start... then pivoting and starting to jog into the start line where I would start sprinting again. Early on in the hill reps I would concentrate on exaggerating my arm drive and knee lift....almost Lydiard "bounding" going uphill.... but the last 4 -6 were all "pure power" with focused ankle pop, knee drive/lift, and hard pumping arms/hands. Good form and perceived effort were more important to me than time ... from Oct-Dec.... but in Jan... I would pay more attention to time to make sure I was making progress over that 3 month period leading in the X-C World Champs in mid March.

I found that the focus on ankle pop, knee lift, and arm drive would help me when I started going to the track once a week in April and twice a week from May-Aug. It gave me strength and power going into the summer track racing as I "woke up" my twitch speed muscles and form for pure speed. It was also great prep for the Euro winter X-C season. Hill intervals can be an excellent and valuable ingredient in your yearly training program. Hard to intense fartlek is another "off the track" training ingredient you need to fit in for another weekly "hard day" during winter months when it is hard to do track workouts anyway. Again, build up your quality/quantity in your hill intervals/fartlek gradually over time to prevent reinjuring yourself. Good luck in your comeback! Craig

Thanks from everyone.

Good thread!

My goal is to race a good HM (masters runner). Which of these variations would benefit me the most? If all three have their place, how should I slot them in my training? I have about 15 weeks until race day.

1. Keep the number of repeats a constant but try to run them faster as fitness improves.

2. Increase the number of repeats up to say 20, while keeping the effort at HM race effort.

3. Keep the number of repeats a constant but make the recovery up-tempo, i.e speed up the downhill segment as fitness improves.

Thank you.

Thanks for posting here (and on this site), Craig! I love hearing from the retired greats about their training/racing. I just bought your book and am just at the point when you left Athletics West. It's a good read and I will start a thread on it when done. If I had one small wish for the book, though, I would like to have read more specific details on your training similar to this post -- I'm assuming the publisher thought there would be boring to readers, but I figure the core buyer for your book are runners so more details might have been enjoyed. For anyone else reading this, it's a good read and Craig is one of the all-time American greats though his career doesn't seem to get quite the attention it deserves!

Interesting question.

My high school indoor coach had us do a very similar interval workout several times a week. The difference is, we ran the hill notably faster than mile pace. It was an intense workout, leaving us toasted. He started the whole team with this - sprinters and shot putters too!

My best mile came down by 4 seconds in the first race of the season. He had us run some distance too, but for the actual season was focused on speed.

The coach was Pat McMahon, who'd run 12th in the '68 Olympic marathon for Ireland, and also had 2nd and 3rd place runs in the Boston Marathon.

He showed up and we were pumped. We believed.

True Craig but acknowledge that your recovery ability was legendary and that the OP should be running any of the timed segments a h**** of a lot slower!

Also

Pay attention to these signs:

1. Sleeping patterns

2. Eating patterns

3. Bowel movements

4. Resting heart rate

5. Illness

6. Injury (See a doctor and quit running!!!)

You are missing the point. Craig was not advocating the OP duplicate his workouts.

State Machine wrote:

You are missing the point. Craig was not advocating the OP duplicate his workouts.

I know that. I think a lot of people, including my older self used to look at times listed by top runners in their workouts, and think that they had to run similar splits. I'm trying to help high school kids who might think that way.

Gotta bump this up to page 1 after Virgin's post

Sorry, but just had an eye operated on for cataract removal and could not read well for a few days. Just got back here to check out any response. Thanks, Floyd, for your kind remarks and for purchasing my authorized biography. We are probably having to change publishing houses/distributors that my author chose due to unfavorable terms... and too high expenses... but we have sold close to 2000 books with just a little bit of promotion/PR. Will work harder on this next month as a result. Randy Sharer and I worked on this project for over 8.5 years....and it underwent a lot of editing. And, yes, a decision was made not to make it too heavy on the "nuts and bolts" of training... like you mentioned above. Maybe that will be a topic for the next book.... training for high school or college runners. Anyway, I am appreciative of Randy's collaboration with me on this project and he did a helluva job of research with my assistance/cooperation. I hope you enjoy the book. And, I think it stands favorably in comparison with my former competitors and friends.... Matt Centrowitz's and Alberto Salazar's recent book efforts in the same vein... altho we decided to do an authorized biography rather than an autobiography... so that the media reports and other people's interview remarks ... would tell the story... NOT ME!

Regarding the training....as in all workouts.... it needs to be scaled according for age, ability, experience, present health status, and your competitive schedule. But, I just wanted you to know that I have always believed in the benefits of doing hill intervals.... sometimes on a steady incline of 150-600 meters ..... sometimes in intervals on "roller coaster" hills so that one can learn the correct biomechanics for racing both the uphill and downhill portions.... as the mechanics are different and the more seamlessly you can transition from one to the other..... the faster you will run....and the more you can close a gap on the runner ahead of you.... or increase any gap you have put on the runner behind you in a X-C or road race.. My HS coach had us do some...as well a my College coach..... but not to the weekly regularity that I did for 6 months...yearly.... from 1978-84. Again, in the beginning ... good form/biomechanics.... even exaggerated ankle pop/knee lift/arm drive.... is what you should be concentrating on....effort rather than time.... and then work on increasing speed incrementally..... after a 2-3 months of doing this at least once every week or two. If you do go shorter hills (150-250 m)... then you can tolerate a faster pace.....but if you go longer... you may need to adopt a slower pace early on..... and then work to speed up over time.... 3-6 months! One can get a lot of power and strength out of hill intervals.... even more than you can on a track or flat grass park/field. The hill is a form of resistance training. Once you get back to the flat track in April/May... you will feel "strong as a tractor".... trust me! Then, you will be ready for true speed work.

Best wishes for a healthy and faster New Year! Craig