Forums >General Running>Calculating Incline
Outside Lane
I’m going to run in a relay for Big Sur Marathon. I’m trying to calculate treadmill incline to train for 500 foot rise over 2 miles. I think it’s about a 4.7 incline over 2 miles? Does that sound right?
See how they run...
That's close enough, yeah.
Runners run
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That assumes a straight line and a constant incline. Understand that the grade will be steeper in some places, less steep in other places. Can you go over the course before the run?
I wish but I’m in Illinois and the course is on CA coast!
It’s the hill at beginning of third leg I am trying to train for...
Do spend some time running at incline, but keep in mind that improving fitness overall is the best way to improve climbing.
BTW, the formula to calculate %grade is 100% x (climbing distance)/(horizontal distance).
Units need to be consistent, if your climbing distance is in feet and your horizontal distance is in miles you'll need to convert one of the units (5280ft = 1 mile)
Note: Technically the distance along the ground is not the horizontal distance, but at the low angles typically encountered on roads it is effectively the same and has no material effect on the calculation (in your example the true horizontal distance is 1.99776 miles).
Funky kicks 2019
Does the percent grade translate to the incline numbers on a treadmill?