Hill Repeats Advice

Krusty_Clown

I'm following a 10k training program at the moment to prime myself for another round of marathon training. I'm following Hal Higdon's advanced program, but have supplemented this with some additional training, specifically hill repeats. My goals are to ready myself for the marathon program, but also get ready for some hill races in June and July.

Wednesdays: 400m intervals at 1 mile pace (generally around 75-80 seconds, with the same amount of time to walk/jog between intervals).
Fridays: 1km hill repeats (105 m climb), at a sustainable (easy) pace, easy jog back to the bottom of the hill and repeat.
Sundays: Longer hilly run (8-12 miles)

Is it ill-advised to do two sessions of this kind on a Wednesday/Friday? So far I'm up to 8x400 and 4x1km hills, increasing the number by 1 each week, and the body seems to be able to handle it fine. Is it ok, because it's using slightly different muscle groups?

Is this a bad approach to hill repeats? i.e should they be shorter and faster, longer and slower, etc?

tisnotover

Nice thread Krusty !

What seems to work for me lately is out on the long run, to attack each of the uphills as they come up at good effort....and recover at the crest....next hill that comes up...go again...its fun if you've a group of ye doing it.

This alone has improved me on the hills, but that Wednesday session also sounds good...even if they were repeats of 100m on hills ?

gerard65

Runners World had a piece on 'killer sessions' a couple of years ago. One was 1k hills and it suggested they be done hard with a walk back down as recovery. NOT for me, thank you:)
Would you not be better doing the 1k's as intervals and the 400 hill repeats for a 10k?

Krusty_Clown

tisnotover wrote: »

What seems to work for me lately is out on the long run, to attack each of the uphills as they come up at good effort....and recover at the crest....next hill that comes up...go again...its fun if you've a group of ye doing it.

That's kind of what I would do on a Sunday, but the hills would be too big to really attack at any pace (unless you're one of those IMRA-hardened hill men (or women).

tisnotover wrote: »

Wednesday session also sounds good...even if they were repeats of 100m on hills ?

Wednesday is not hills. It's flat/grass standard 400m intervals.

gerard65 wrote:

Would you not be better doing the 1k's as intervals and the 400 hill repeats for a 10k?

I don't have any plans to actually run the 10k. The training is just to get ready for marathon training. There's also a mini tempo session on a Tuesday, which I didn't really count, as it's only 30-50 mins. I'm doing 400s as that's what the program prescribes. Don't have a link to the RW article do you?

tisnotover

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

That's kind of what I would do on a Sunday, but the hills would be too big to really attack at any pace (unless you're one of those IMRA-hardened hill men (or women).

Fair enough point on the hill length, I guess what I mean by pace would be to hold your long run pace and not let that drop...if you can do anything faster thats a bonus ?

gerard65

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Don't have a link to the RW article do you?

It was in the magazine, remember those things made out of paper we use to buy in shops, before the interweb was invented:). It was a series of pieces they did on the 'big' sessions the elite's do. One was on a group of Kenyan's who do 1k hill repeats. They'd run up the hill at 90% effort and jog slowly back. 6 - 7 repeats in one session.

village runner

1k seems alot..........
Also its berlin you are doing and as you know there aint any hills in Berlin.
When i do them i have a lad with me and its 12 x 80 seconds with slow slow walk down.

Aimman

Coming up to Connemara, I spent some sessions in the Phoenix Park. I parked the car at the bottom of the Kyber pass and ran up it to the top and jogged back down. At the bottom of the pass, there are two paths up hills on the left hand side. Sprint up one, easy jog back down, then do the same with the other path. then back up the Kyber Pass and repeat. Did it for about 5 times, then jogged up military road hill, along acre road and back down the kyber pass to cool off.

The hill climbs weren't consistant, because you are tackling 3 gradients and distances with different efforts, but gave a bit of variety. Gets to the point where you dread reaching the bottom of the kyber, cos you knew there was a couple of steep sprints ahead of you.:D

Krusty_Clown

gerard65 wrote: »

It was in the magazine, remember those things made out of paper we use to buy in shops, before the interweb was invented:).

Runners World comes out on paper too?
Do you mean this article?

Krusty_Clown

village runner wrote: »

1k seems alot..........
Also its berlin you are doing and as you know there aint any hills in Berlin.
When i do them i have a lad with me and its 12 x 80 seconds with slow slow walk down.

I find doing my marathon training on hills helps with endurance, but I also have a couple of hill races coming up before Berlin. But 80 seconds at hard pace does sound like a more productive session (but would have more in common with the intervals on Wednesdays). What kind of climb is it?

GoHardOrGoHome

Hey Krusty, this doesn't answer your specific question but in Rene's hill circuits he says that you can do them up to three times per week.

The hill circuits are 400m uphill (good form, high knees exaggerated running), 400m flat recovery, 400m fast downhill concentrating on fast leg turnover, 400m flat recovery. (and repeat x 4 (can build to 6 or 8 or the sections can build to 600m each or even 800m each).

As I understand it the uphill builds muscle strength and the downhill works on getting your brain to fire quickly enough to handle the increased leg turnover.

These sessions are great for hill runners but also worked wonders for Lydiard's athletes.

More info here...

http://www.mountain-runner.com/2010/05/training-lydiard-hill-circuit.html

BeepBeep67

Funny as I was getting battered on the plinth this evening I was discussing hill work with my punisher (he says he's not hurting me, it's that I've hurt me) and he used to do a hill session which consisted of 3 sets of 3 x 200mts + 1 x 600mts, so you get a good combination of working hard with shorter recoveries and then the longer recovery after the 600. I'm sure this could be adapted anyway you like, something I plan to experiment with in the Autumn.

Krusty_Clown

Thanks all. There's a general theme emerging, that hill repeats should be shorter and run harder.

dna_leri

Personally I train on both short hills (100m) and long hills (400m).

Lydiard says:
Find a hill with a raise of near 1 in 3, or a little steeper.... It should be about 200-300m or longer with a flattish area at the base of approx 200-400m where you can sprint, and an area at the top where it is possible to jog.

He advocates springing up-hill with a bouncing action and slow foward progression.

mloc123

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm following a 10k training program at the moment to prime myself for another round of marathon training. I'm following Hal Higdon's advanced program, but have supplemented this with some additional training, specifically hill repeats. My goals are to ready myself for the marathon program, but also get ready for some hill races in June and July.

Wednesdays: 400m intervals at 1 mile pace (generally around 75-80 seconds, with the same amount of time to walk/jog between intervals).
Fridays: 1km hill repeats (105 m climb), at a sustainable (easy) pace, easy jog back to the bottom of the hill and repeat.
Sundays: Longer hilly run (8-12 miles)

Is it ill-advised to do two sessions of this kind on a Wednesday/Friday? So far I'm up to 8x400 and 4x1km hills, increasing the number by 1 each week, and the body seems to be able to handle it fine. Is it ok, because it's using slightly different muscle groups?

Is this a bad approach to hill repeats? i.e should they be shorter and faster, longer and slower, etc?

Sorry to go a little off topic here, I am looking at Hal's advanced 10k also to use during my build period in 2 weeks.... Has anyone used it before and what did you think?

ocnoc

tisnotover wrote: »

attack each of the uphills as they come up at good effort....and recover at the crest....

The crest is where you attack as everyones legs and lungs are in bits.
I train the body to get up to full tilt for 30-50m after i crest a hill. Its a physiology thing is well. If you slow down after the top in training, then you'll slow down coming over the top in a race

Krusty_Clown

dna_leri wrote: »

Lydiard says:
Find a hill with a raise of near 1 in 3, or a little steeper

Ah, written in ye olde English. By one in three shold I interpret that he means that it should have approximately a third of height gain as a measure of it's length? So a 400m hill would need to have a 133m height gain? That's incredibly steep (20 degrees?)

According to this article what I'm doing is more in line with a tempo session, which would suggest that one of my sessions during the week is probably redundant and couple be better spent in some other way.

I forgot to mention that one of my other goals is to be able to run uphill for prolonged periods of time without stopping (which is an area I've been letting myself down in the IMRA races).

Krusty_Clown

mloc123 wrote: »

Sorry to go a little off topic here, I am looking at Hal's advanced 10k also to use during my build period in 2 weeks.... Has anyone used it before and what did you think?

Yeah, I've used it a few times. It's good, but as a base for 10k training, you might find it more useful to stretch out the long run on the Sunday and potentially run a longer run during the week too.

tisnotover

ocnoc wrote: »

The crest is where you attack as everyones legs and lungs are in bits.
I train the body to get up to full tilt for 30-50m after i crest a hill. Its a physiology thing is well. If you slow down after the top in training, then you'll slow down coming over the top in a race

In a race ok I agree and would + take that approach, memories of cresting+opening a good gap in the Ballycotton 10 this year come to mind !

I would disagree with your view on slowing down in training versus race, it hasn't happened yet !

TFBubendorfer

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Ah, written in ye olde English. By one in three shold I interpret that he means that it should have approximately a third of height gain as a measure of it's length? So a 400m hill would need to have a 133m height gain? That's incredibly steep (20 degrees?)

The one-in-three is from one of Lydiard's books.

I've read an interview with Nobby Hashizume a while ago, and he very clearly said that would be far too steep. About 10% would be preferable, and the downward part should be closer to 5% if I remember correctly.

shels4ever

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Thanks all. There's a general theme emerging, that hill repeats should be shorter and run harder.

Well it depends on what you want to get out of them,

I liked this article
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hilltrain.htm

it goes through but Strength development and speed development and how to use hill to improve leg turnover etc..

Gringo78

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Thanks all. There's a general theme emerging, that hill repeats should be shorter and run harder.

+1 Shorter & harder

GoHardOrGoHome wrote: »

The hill circuits are 400m uphill (good form, high knees exaggerated running), 400m flat recovery, 400m fast downhill concentrating on fast leg turnover, 400m flat recovery. (and repeat x 4 (can build to 6 or 8 or the sections can build to 600m each or even 800m each).

As I understand it the uphill builds muscle strength and the downhill works on getting your brain to fire quickly enough to handle the increased leg turnover.

If you want to do IMRA events, you need the downhill running. But really, all hill work should involve fast downhills.

Hills can serve 2 purposes - makes you a good hill runner or makes you faster running on the flat because of greater leg strength and turnover (therefore useful in Berlin even though its flat)

If you're not used to the fast downhills suggest by GoHard, bring them in slowly i.e 1 downhill for every 4 uphill, building up to even of each. If you are going to use that 1km hill then its easy...run fast 400m up, walk down recovery (but not full waydown), 400m up again, walk down, eventually you'll hit the top of the hill and then blast back down half it after the walk recovery and start again.

Krusty_Clown

Gringo78 wrote: »

If you're not used to the fast downhills suggest by GoHard, bring them in slowly i.e 1 downhill for every 4 uphill, building up to even of each. If you are going to use that 1km hill then its easy...run fast 400m up, walk down recovery (but not full waydown), 400m up again, walk down, eventually you'll hit the top of the hill and then blast back down half it after the walk recovery and start again.

That seems like a good idea. Cheers.

Peckham

Just to remind you...Daniels (which I've just finished reading and have a few queries, but that will be the subject of another thread) suggests that hill running is best done on a treadmill in order to avoid the strain of the downhill segments.

From a distance running perspective, I've always thought there was more benefit in incorporating rolling hills into my long runs, particularly when doing PMP or similar sessions. Mind you, I've never done specific interval sessions on hills.

Krusty_Clown

Peckham wrote: »

Just to remind you...Daniels (which I've just finished reading and have a few queries, but that will be the subject of another thread) suggests that hill running is best done on a treadmill in order to avoid the strain of the downhill segments.

From a distance running perspective, I've always thought there was more benefit in incorporating rolling hills into my long runs, particularly when doing PMP or similar sessions. Mind you, I've never done specific interval sessions on hills.

Hill running on a dreadmill? I draw the line there!
from a distance running perspective, I think you're right, that rolling hills on a long run are the most suitable incorporation of hills, but I'm trying to kill a few birds with one stone. I've two good uphill challenges coming up, including the IMRa half marathon plod in July, where the first 6 miles are uphill.

T runner

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I forgot to mention that one of my other goals is to be able to run uphill for prolonged periods of time without stopping (which is an area I've been letting myself down in the IMRA races).

Hi Krusty,

Climbing endurance can be done during the weekend long run. If you take in 2/3 climbs you can run up then at a very slow pace. Just trying to get as far up as possible. It may be slower than walking but the goal is to improve the lenght of time you can run up hill. You can use the intermediate downhills to recover but get used to covering the ground fast while recovering as this will help your descending.

Second session should be shorter to improve strenght. For road speed exageraate the stride, for climbing speed keep the stride short and low as you would climbing a hill. If your training for marathon maybe exagerrate slightly as a compromise. Bouncing a bit is always good too as it uses your ankle power.

Lydiards sessions are good for developing speed. ie hills improve stride lenght and downhills improve leg turnover.


Ive attached training into on Kenny Stuart who was twice world mountain running champion but also ran a 2.11 marathon and was the great British hope for marathon running until alergies stopped him.

His training was quite scientific and this contains sample week schedules for mountain running training and marathon training. You can see the similarites and differences in teh training so it may help you. His wifes schedules are here also. She had a more traditional approach to mountaon running training!

Gringo78

T runner wrote: »

Ive attached training into on Kenny Stuart who was twice world mountain running champion but also ran a 2.11 marathon and was the great British hope for marathon running until alergies stopped him.

One thing I always notice from these sample schedules from the top runners - they do know how to run easy. He had an LT pace of 04:50 per mile and did his recovery runs at 7:00 min/ml pace. I've an LT pace of 6:00 so my recovery runs should be at 8:42 - I struggle to run as slow as 8:00. His runs of 10miles at 6:00 pace would translate to 7:30 pace for me which I would call v.easy yet he seemed to rate them as more aerobic, he wasn't calling them easy anyways.

Hardly conincidence that you see this all the time....the faster the runner, the larger the gap between their hard session pace and their easy runs. the slower then runner, the more one-paced their training is.

RayCun

Gringo78 wrote: »

If you're not used to the fast downhills

How should I run downhill, by the way? (I know there was a thread on this but can't find it, sorry)
I usually find myself leaning back to brake my run, but it feels quite jarring.

Slogger Jogger

RayCun wrote: »

How should I run downhill, by the way? (I know there was a thread on this but can't find it, sorry)
I usually find myself leaning back to brake my run, but it feels quite jarring.

What I do is lean forward, use gravity and spin those legs. You'll naturally go fast. If you push it you'll naturally go very fast.

I tried some uphill sprints this evening. 8 x 100 strides on a moderate hilly trail. Jogged slowly down the trail and out and back on the level trail at the bottom then go again hard uphill each time. As I was sprinting I couldn't really have sustained it much longer each time. Happy enough with it as a short session through. I'll try work up to more and longer uphill sections.

donothoponpop

RayCun wrote: »

How should I run downhill, by the way? (I know there was a thread on this but can't find it, sorry)
I usually find myself leaning back to brake my run, but it feels quite jarring.

You won't get any better advice than from these guys on IMRA.

village runner

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I find doing my marathon training on hills helps with endurance, but I also have a couple of hill races coming up before Berlin. But 80 seconds at hard pace does sound like a more productive session (but would have more in common with the intervals on Wednesdays). What kind of climb is it?

Its 80 seconds of hell. Would manage 10km pace but i dont know if i would manage it if it was 2 min. I love the slow walk down. After 7 or so I count them down. Its a session i dont enjoy. Its steep. Its one of those hills that when you were a young lad you would avoid like the plague.