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My Home running (Read 144 times)

    I was wondering if the elevation matter that much when training. My little lap run I do goes from 2298 ft to 2502 ft. I wondering if that would help me running in a race.

      That elevation range isn't high enough to have much effect on your training. The amount of climb in there is a tad over 200ft. That can be useful for hill work, especially if it's over a short distance, say < 0.5mi. You didn't say how long your lap is. If the hill is greater than a few %, even if short, it can be used for hill sprints and other hill drills.

      "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog


      Latent Runner

        Yup, like AKTrail said, if your "little lap" is a half of a mile and you do it ten times, then working your 204' hill can help you in racing, however, if your lap is more like five miles and the grade is very gradual, it probably won't make a difference.

         

        Case in point, I train daily on a trail loop with a gain/loss of just over 800' in eight miles, 500 of those feet happen between .25 miles and 1.25 miles into the run (down), and between 6.75 and 7.75 miles into the run (back up).  The remaining 300' are sprinkled around the middle 5.5 miles.

         

        I told you that to tell you this...

        I recently ran two events with lots of hills, the first was a 10 mile loop around a local lake with a gain/loss of 725'; I was prepared for every hill but the long gradual one mile climb in the seventh mile (all of the hills I train on are pretty steep); I didn't walk, but I sure thought about it.  The second was a 6-leg relay where I covered 33 miles in about 26 hours; legs 4 and 5 were both relatively short (ten to eleven miles total if I recall correctly), and they both included lots of fairly steep climbing (and then some nasty descents once over the top).  I'm not going to say I handled the climbing with ease, but because they were more akin to the hills I train on, I got through them with enough energy left over to keep from crashing down the other side, and of course enough energy to finish.

         

        Many of the other runners in the above two events clearly hadn't done lots of hill work and were relegated to walking, and even some of those walking weren't looking terribly happy.

        Fat old man PRs:

        • 1-mile (point to point, gravity assist): 5:50
        • 2-mile: 13:49
        • 5K (gravity assist last mile): 21:31
        • 5-Mile: 37:24
        • 10K (first 10K of my Half Marathon): 48:16
        • 10-Mile (first 10 miles of my Half Marathon): 1:17:40
        • Half Marathon: 1:42:13
          ...

          Many of the other runners in the above two events clearly hadn't done lots of hill work and were relegated to walking, and even some of those walking weren't looking terribly happy.

          I had a 10-hr climbathon (2000ft in 2.2 mi, ride tram down, as many times as you can in 10 hr) a week ago and a loop marathon with 3500ft of up this past Saturday. Everyone trains hills big time for both of them. Even the fast folks walk some (most?) of the 10-hr, and many except the fastest walk the bigger hills in the 26.2.

          "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog
          Julia1971


            I can't speak to the elevation.  I think you got good advice on that already.  But, a general rules of thumb is that you'll want to train on courses similar to what you'll be racing on.  So, if your race is hilly, you'll want to seek out some hills.  If it's not, you don't necessarily have to although a lot of people like to run hills anyway because they're a form of strength training.

              It is 1.49 miles lap.