Become a Super Athlete: Why You Should Be Running Hills in Your Training
A go-to guide for crushing undulating terrain
Lately, I’ve been running a lot more hills.
After a few weeks, I’m starting to feel the benefits on my runs.
Learning how to run hills and run them well is an important skill for all runners. Hill work has been proven to strengthen the musculature of our legs and increase power output.
I love incorporating more hills during a base phase of a training program. It helps wake up the legs and gets them used to turning over quickly before running faster paces on flat road while reducing overall impact forces.
Hills as a Performance Multiplier
Running hills is an indirect form of resistance training and acts as a performance multiplier.
Performance multipliers are those activities you do that provide the most bang for your buck when it comes to improvement.
When it comes to running hills, there are countless studies that show a boost in endurance and VO2 max, improved resting HR, improved cardiac output and oxygen uptake, and better overall race performance.
That sounds like a performance multiplier to me.
Hills to Improve Running Mechanics
Running hills also greatly helps improve running economy — that is, how efficient you are when you run.
The reason for this is that it promotes proper form.
Running up a hill requires a forward lean and “falling into your stride” exactly what we want when running on flat ground.
You are also required to maintain good posture and land under your center of mass which allows for better stride propulsion and foot placement instead of landing out in front of your body.
Running hills can be difficult but if you want to improve form, running mechanics and overall stamina and power output, try incorporating hillier routes into your programming once or twice a week.
How To Conquer more Hills
One of the best ways to make running hills more approachable is to focus on RPE vs pace.
Instead of trying to maintain the same pace up an incline as on flat road, focus on perceived effort. This will allow you to adjust your pace and recover more quickly when you reach the top vs dramatically slowing down or stopping entirely. This also prevents you from frying your energy reserves for the rest of the run.
One of the mental tricks that has helped me over the years is something that I came up with while living in San Francisco.
SF and the Marin Headland trails are notoriously hilly. To prepare myself for my first half marathon, I made a pact with myself that I would never stop on a hill during training runs.
This created a non-negotiable and took the thinking out of the equation. And it taught me to stay present and continue to push up some mega inclines when I didn’t want to.
Just like anything that’s hard, the most difficult part is actually doing it. The less I think about it and start moving, the easier it is to overcome.
Variety = Improvement
I still very much enjoy flat roads and ripping the track. But these hillier routes have turned me into a beast that I wasn’t expecting.
It hasn’t happened quickly but over time I’ve felt more fluid on runs and easier to maintain faster paces.
Fitness doesn’t happen all at once, but rather slowly builds upon itself. Like plate tectonics, the fitness from running more hills has slowly integrated into my system and rears its head sometimes during the most unexpected moments.
I notice my recovery is better when I reach the top of the hill. I am able to keep moving and heart rate stabilizes more quickly than it used to. My average heart rate is also dramatically lower throughout my easy runs.
Variety is key. And running hills can provide a lot of variety into your runs.
Run them long, run them short, run them fast, run them slow.
Do surges, striders or a set of all out sprints at the end of your runs.
Whatever way you do them, stay consistent and you’ll become a more efficient, resilient and stronger runner.
Final Thoughts: Embracing the Discomfort
Leaning into the discomfort is one of the best things you can do as an athlete. Once you reach a certain point, you start craving the feeling because you realize how much stronger it makes you.
The hard stuff like running hills doesn’t necessarily become easier, you just get stronger. And it takes a strong, resilient individual to stick with something that sucks or that you aren’t good at.
Seeking out more variety and #embracingthesuck translates to more adventure, mental toughness, improved fitness and more passion for the game.
#hillspaythebills
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