Running a hilly race (Read 260 times)

For the Danbury Half, I actually found the longest hill I could I find in my area that was similar in grade compared to the worst climb in Danbury (2.3% grade between miles 8 and 10).  Then I incorporated that hill into my last long run before the half...3 times.  I ran loops, making sure I did the hill once in the beginning, once in the middle, and once at the end.  All three times, I tried to push the pace just a little harder than the rest of my run.  The third time was definitely the hardest, but I think it definitely prepared me both physically and mentally for Danbury.

I can vouch for that being a nasty and cruelly placed hill. Well done.

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That was a hard race for me....but at least every uphill had a downhill that followed. 3 miles uphill in the Baltimore half....yeeeesh!

Something I was thinking about on my run today was if you're only used to short rolling hills, see if you can find a long hill - maybe a mile or so. Something that can happen on short hills is that you run them at an effort that's not sustainable for a few miles. If you don't have a long hill near you, but do use a tm occasionally, this might be the time to use it. Either go for 3 mi at the average grade or a bit more or see if you can program some variation in there - like 1 mi (or x min) of 8% followed by 0.2 mi of 4% or whatever. (I just picked those numbers out of the air since I don't remember what your hill was like, but I did about 3.7mi @ 8% on Monday.) IIRC, the hill in your race did have some variation to it. You can pick up the pace at the same effort on the gentler areas - IF you're paying attention to what's going on.

Learn to be friends with the hills. Respect them but don't fear them.  Pick ones with great views on top - but keep running over the top.

You people are really over thinking this whole thing, if you know a race is going to be hilly and where the hills are at, train on something similiar.

The problem is that some of us live in flat areas.

I know just the hill.... I just looked it up it is .9 miles long and is a few miles from my apartment.

Something I was thinking about on my run today was if you're only used to short rolling hills, see if you can find a long hill - maybe a mile or so. Something that can happen on short hills is that you run them at an effort that's not sustainable for a few miles. If you don't have a long hill near you, but do use a tm occasionally, this might be the time to use it. Either go for 3 mi at the average grade or a bit more or see if you can program some variation in there - like 1 mi (or x min) of 8% followed by 0.2 mi of 4% or whatever. (I just picked those numbers out of the air since I don't remember what your hill was like, but I did about 3.7mi @ 8% on Monday.) IIRC, the hill in your race did have some variation to it. You can pick up the pace at the same effort on the gentler areas - IF you're paying attention to what's going on.

 

Learn to be friends with the hills. Respect them but don't fear them.  Pick ones with great views on top - but keep running over the top.

I ran my first HM last month and the course it as below. This is what I did. I tried mentioning even pace of 8:30 for the first 3 miles. By the time I hit first hill on mile 4, I knew what effort I was maintaining to keep 8:30 pace so I tackled the first hill at that effort. I ran little faster on downhill and pushed a bit later on to have an average pace around 8:30. So I ran first 7 miles around 8:30 pace and by this time I was aware about the effort that I was putting in. From this point onward, I didnt care about the pace and tried maintain the same effort. I studied the course before and knew that mile 12 would be my slowest one and I ran it at 9:36. At the end of the race my average pace was 8:32. Ofcourse I had positive slpit as my first 7 miles were littler under 8:30, but I knew this going into the race due to elevation in the later part of the race and the fact that last 7 miles were on the trail as opposed to the first 6 on the road and I felt I did good job in the pacing in my first HM.

Kristin - I've run Baltimore (the full, but the half mostly shares the course) and the hills really aren't bad.  The worst for me was the tiny bump on the highway bridge near the end, just because of where it comes in the course!  With the half, the long uphill is early in your race so you will hardly notice.

I'm running a trail 10K two weeks from this Sunday which climbs 630 feet in 2 miles.  Now that's a hill!