Forums >General Running>"hills" designation ?
Can someone pls clarify the point at which "easy" run morphs into a "hill" run? Is it simply when X percentage of the total run is X degrees of slope? A hill would be considered five degrees, ten degrees? Thanks.
For me there are easy runs and workouts. Hills are one type of workout. Whether a run is designated easy or a workout is subjective and based on effort more than any specific criteria. In general (though there are exceptions) workouts such as hills or tempos are purposeful, they do not just happen randomly.
But basically it's your running log so classify things however you see fit.
Runners run
In the course of most of my runs, encountering a hill is essentially unavoidable. All of my easy runs have hills in them. I run those hills easy (though, those hills are not always easy to run, even with an easy effort). If the wind blew in my face, I wouldn’t call it a “wind” run. If I ran on a muddy dirt road, I wouldn’t call it a “dirt” run. A hill is just a hill on an easy run.
For a run to be a “hill” run, I would seek out a specific hill or series of hills, and run repeats on them with some specific harder than easy effort in mind. That would be a workout.
Basically, what Mike said.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
Walk-Jogger
A hill run workout for me is 100% up and down hill, not just running a hilly route. I live in the middle of a mile-long hill with an average slope of about 4.5%, so when I run to the bottom of my hill, back to the top, and then home its a 2.1 mile hill work out with 270 feet of climbing and an equal decent. When I run the loop around town it's just as much or even more up and down hills, but spread out over 8 miles instead of 2, and I just consider it a normal "hilly" run. I work the up and downhills a lot harder for my "hills" designated runs.
Retired & Loving It
Labrat
Most of my outdoor runs are rather hilly anyway.
For me its a difference in purpose, a hilly easy run is just that. I'm not above walking a few steps on some of the steeper ones if I feel the need to.
A Hill workout, for me is either deliberately choosing a hilly route and pushing myself on both the ups and downs, or something specific like hill sprint repeats.
(Or VERY occasionally doing a hill program on the TM)
5K 20:23 (Vdot 48.7) 9/9/17
10K 44:06 (Vdot 46.3) 3/11/17
HM 1:33:48 (Vdot 48.6) 11/11/17
FM 4:13:43 (Vdot 35.4) 3/4/18
I classify Hills as repeats. Some people would call this intervals. For me, the pace is not the most important thing, the repetition of the hill is the challenge.
-STS
As others have said, easy is a matter of effort, while hills are usually a form of workout at higher effort. I have rolling hills, medium hills, and big hills And variations within them a long run may have hills (say, 3000ft of uphill and same amt of down) but the purpose of that run is "long" I depend on the amt of climb from Barometric altimeter to show me the amount of vertical uphill on a run.
Many of my everyday training runs are flat. If I happen to do an easy run with very significant hill content I call it a 'hill' run, whether I run intervals on the hills or just run them easy.
Personally I hem and haw about labels like this sometimes when logging my runs. I agree it is about the purpose of the run, rather than how hilly it happens to be, but runs can serve multiple purposes -- you have to pick one when choosing the workout type. Last week I did two runs with a purpose of getting in lots of hill work for Western States. One was 15 miles -- I called that a "hill" workout, though normally I would call a 15-mile run "medium-long" (per Pfitzinger). The other was 20 miles, and just as hilly, and though the hills were equally important, I logged it as "long". In fact, even my "easy" runs have ~1000 ft gain/loss; I view that as hill training as well, but log them as easy, because they are mainly there to add low-effort mileage.
MTA today I'm doing that same 15-mile "hill" workout, but in the middle of the afternoon, when it's 90°. (Heat training is also essential for Western States.) So that gets me distance, hills, and heat -- but it will still be a "hill" workout.
I've got a fever...
If it's meant to be an easy run, but it's on a course with substantial hills, I call it "Easy On Hills" to distinguish it from a plain old flatlander "Easy" run. If it's a true hill workout (i.e hill repeats, fartlek on rolling hills), I'll label it as Hills.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
I call a long run on hills a hilly long run.
Hills I use is a more specific workout.
Certified Running CoachCrocked since 2013
I designate 'hills' as a workout in my log, and keep everything else as 'easy' or some other adjective because of the way I ran that day. The one exception I have to this rule is when I go out and run in an area to specifically experience a lot of elevation change, which I refer to as a 'mountain' run (Theres a small mountain around where I live with lots of ridges and valleys). I'll do a fair amount of mileage when I'm up there, mostly to make it worth the trip (10-15 miles), but when I go for a long run (15-20) I'll still call it a long run. Basically everyone has there own way of classifying their training runs, so I wouldn't sweat it as long as you know what you mean when logging your runs.
Hill repeats are running the same hill over and over. All hill.
A hilly run depends on where you live. I measured the climb in most of my routes.
Most runs climbed 600-800' per hour = easy to 1600-1800' per hour = hard
The trails I run are rated easy to most difficult. There is a sign at the trailhead.
The hills on Hebron Mt. are named Champion Hills because Jack Dempsey the famous boxer ran them.
He felt those hills made him tough. I don't know why but those hills make the front, back, and sides of your legs hurt.
Totally Agree with you here just adding the "mountain runs" as another category, for people near them anyways.
I call a long run on hills a hilly long run. Hills I use is a more specific workout.
5k = 19.48 10/1/13
10k = 45.28 4/16/13
Half Marathon = 1:38.53 Summer Sizzle 7/13/14
Operation Jack Marathon 12/26/12 4:39.11
Solo O Marathon 06/02/13 3:52:10
Operation Jack Marathon 12/26/13 3:40.34
I would definitely agree that "hills" is a subjective designation. Running up hills, and quantifying such runs, has recently become an obsession off mine. If you're a numbers geek like me, computing and adding elevation gain to your log can introduce a whole new level of time-suck.
I generally label a workout as "hills" when the focus of the run is on the hills. Go figure. That could include anything from old-school hill reps (6-10 x 1mi hill loop that includes 1/3 uphill, 1/3 downhill, and 1/3 flat) to a trail fartlek with an emphasis on working the hills hard (usually 500ft+ for a half-hour or 1000ft+ for a full hour run) to some steady treadmill climbs (run up 1000-3000ft+ at a continuous or varied incline).
As a flat lander, I have to get creative sometimes. It's hard to find a run that can accumulate the elevation you would get living in the mountains. At least, not with any reasonable time constraints.