[phlegmatical]

Hello,

I have been running for 7 month now and my times have come down dramatically. I've recently improved my 10k time to 47 minutes from nearly 1 hour 30 mins when i started.

Problem is I'm still struggling with hills. I'll be running at a comfortable 7:45-8 mpm pace and if I get to a slight hill I'm struggling to even maintain 9 mpm.

I want to start doing some hill training and was wondering what the best training plan is?

There is a hill by me that is around half a mile distance... do i literally need to just run up that then easy jog down 3 or 4 times?

Is there anything else i can do to improve my hill running?

Thanks everyone

 

[Mark_Finlay]

I think you have hit the solution. Running up hills repeatedly will improve your ability to cope with them. But remember that you are very early in your running life and you will naturally get stronger the more running you do.
Most people run too hard up hills and too easy down them. Keeping a constant effort is better during a race and will improve your race times. You need a HR monitor to get used to doing this. That doesn't mean hill reps are bad though.

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[Gary5k]

I think they'r excellent , google 'Pete Magill' he has some good ones.

I think just keeping it simple like hard up, slow jog down, repeat 5-6 times would do the trick.

Or as its half a mile you could do short 10s sprint, walk/rest, short 10s sprint etc etc til you get to the top.

 

[Ellis Rimmer]

shorter strides when hill running and keep your head up looking to the top, when you're near the top don't slack off until you're over the peak

 

[Sam J]

Most people run too hard up hills and too easy down them.

I think just keeping it simple like hard up, slow jog down

And here in lies the problem when asking for advice on the internet

 

[adibear]

Your pace is naturally going to slow going uphill. Just try to maintain an even level of effort as running on the flat. Shorter stride, head up.
Try not to shy away from them. Round my way we dont really have much choice.

 

[phlegmatical]

thanks for all the good replies!

I'm going to try doing some hill reps tonight and I'll work on some shorter strides.

When racing I would keep the pace up over the hill but for training would I be better going hard up the hill then very slow down or try to keep an even pace up and down?

 

[Stupid Beard]

You can adapt any track session to hills, where the effort is up hill and the recovery is downhill. For example, pyramids are a good alternative to plain reps.

Variation is important. Vary the sessions, hills and efforts the same way you would with other training. Just doing the same thing every time won't help you much.

When racing I would keep the pace up over the hill but for training would I be better going hard up the hill then very slow down or try to keep an even pace up and down?

It depends on the hill, but generally no.

Maintain the effort not the pace. If you try and maintain the pace it will catch up with you and you will slow down and/or blow up unless it's a short and/or not very steep hill.

If the hill is steep enough there's also a point where you can physically keep running, but it's actually quicker to walk. In these cases in training you should keep running, but in a race you should walk.