HILL repeats question

any coaches?

Not sure if there is a concensus on this yet, but some coaches believe that the more rest time, the better, as long as you don't cool down completely. It allows you to run the hill repeats at a higher intensity, which is what you're running them for in the first place.

From my own personal experience:

I ran hill repeats with similar times as you this spring and had a noticeable improvement.

bump

The longest recovery I will take is 1 minute. My workouts are on the track. I'm not sure about your hill situation.

You obviously feel as thought the recovery is too long, so it probably is.

Run the downhills at a slightly uptempo pace.

You mentioned safety. If the hill is so steep that you can not run down it safely, your hill is too steep. It can be counterproductive if it is so steep that you are severely altering your form. Then, hill repeats are no better than leg presses. make sure you are maintaining good form throughout the workout.

Buffet Line... wrote:

Then, hill repeats are no better than leg presses.

Think ankle flexion.

Macho Time, that's a great workout! That's enarly an exact mirror of the best preparation I ever did. Do it ten times every other week. Easy, easy, easy on the jog downhills.

One tweak that you might try: on each loop jog down about 60-100m, turn around an drill it. It will do wonders for your finishing kick.

Try doing a hill circuit if you can. A good variation and will inject some different paces into hill training. Run an uphill stretch of 200-400 m, shag 80-100 m at the top, then do a 80-100 m stride, descend to the bottom, perform another 80-100 m stride, then repeat for 15-30 minutes. If you can plan out a loop of about 1K in length it makes for a good workout and helps keep it interesting.

This is very similar to what I started doing about 3 months ago (1/4 mile hill repeats in 1:30-35 with a jog down recovery). It's nice to have some confirmation that I'm on the right track and that others have benefited for this type of workout.

Don't worry about the recovery being too long between the reps. The important thing is you are doing the hill reps and they length of them is long enough to improve your race performance. People who cut the rest too short tend to not do enough reps to induce the effect they need.

In addition to 25-40 second hill reps, I advise runners, at times, to do 2-3 minute reps at about 85% of one-time best speed. After dong the long reps, do 3 x 50m at 90% of best speed.

It may be worth noting that doing hill reps too often will end up hurting the rest of your training schedule. Try doing the hills once a week at most. In a perfect world. I tell to do them 2 times in every three weeks, taking either 10 or 11 days between sessions, if you are not racing. Good luck!