After your 1st Event- part 2

HILLS: we have talked about training on hills in earlier posts. It is very old tradition in track world, from stories back in 1950’s of Peter Cerrulty having his runner go up/down huge sand dunes, to Arthur Lydiard and his runners doing mega miles on hills.  Dr. Michael Yessis, Ph.D gives a great analysis in his classic (buy it) book “Explosive Running” about why it is good for you. Plus if you study the top world runners, they come from places like Kenya, Morocco and Copper Canyon, Mexico where they train on “hills” on a regular basis.

But, before you go out and start running big hills you need to have a sufficient base. According to Randy Acetta and Greg Wenneborg in their book “Basic training for Running”, you should be running 2-3miles at least 2x/week.  This is necessary for building up muscle/tendon strength as the downhill portion of hill running puts significant GRF on your tendons and any instability problems will be exacerbated.

If you are ready to run hills, this is why it is so good for you:

1.       Improves knee drive –this will carry over to stride length and power on flat course.

2.       Improves ankle extension- this is huge part of your propulsion system.

3.       Acts as a strength building activity without going to weight room.

4.       Down hills will increase your stride length and act as type of “assisted running”.

All of these are great things to improve in your running form. Remember to start on small hills with a gentle incline. When you have mastered the technique, you can gradually move up to bigger hills. Maybe someday, you will go from running those flat road race to doing Ultra marathons and Mountain Racing.