Hills for Fast Fitness

I have always had an affinity for running hills but I wasn’t always good at it.  I first learned about my hill climbing inferiority during my inaugural fall living in Boulder, Colorado; my new friend and training buddy, Jim Carouthers, invited me on a Green Mountain run in Chautauqua Park and then continued on to leave  me behind about 5 minutes into our 45-50 minute ascent.  I was dumbfounded watching Jim scurry up the hill with these tiny little steps while I was getting dropped while using my powerful strides and bounds.  It felt like there was no way I could go any faster, yet Jim was pulling away from me.  It didn’t take me long to accept that I needed to shorten my stride, quicken my step and emulate the form of my friend Jim.

Several years later I felt like I finally came full circle and was able to use the hill climb to my advantage.  I dismounted the bike of a Xterra race in Arizona in the lead along side an athlete whom most likely would have smoked me on a flat run.  Rendered to being a slower runner on the flats due my ultra chronic heel injury, I had trained to excel on the more impact forgiving up-hills.  With a 12 minute hill climb to start the run, I managed to create a 90 second cushion that this athlete slowly carved 60 seconds out of over the remaining downhill and rolling 4 miles allowing me to hold onto the lead.

One of my favorite things about climbing hills is the no-brainer mentality it takes to get a great training session in.  Whether your hill is 20 seconds or 40 minutes long the physiological, technical, and mental demands are the same: you need to use your body in good form to get to the top in the most efficient way possible.  With the summit as a goal and the hill as the workload, all you have to do is move your body and you are challenging your fitness.

Ascending a hill with speed and efficiency requires technique, aerobic and anaerobic power as well as enduring strength: Hill Running Technique:

• Use quick feet to lessen the load on each push-off.
• Side step so you can chop away at the hill rather than using an energy sucking bound; this will also help you recruit your powerful glutes and save the quads.
• Lean forward at the ankles so you can literally fall up the hill and use gravity to your advantage.
• Drive with your knees up at the angle of the hill in order to create momentum and shorten your swing leg so it comes through quicker.
• Speed up those arms to set a high cadence for the legs and tighten up your fascia throughout your body to create a spring loaded push-up.
• Keep your hips high and forward to promote that lean from the ankles.  I bet you will notice that you bend at the hips when you get tired going up hills – get strong so you don’t bend!