Hills and the newbie (Read 940 times)

walk part of the hill, run part of the hill. run all of the hill slowly, walk to recover (intervals) walk fast up the hills and try running intermittently to see where you are. Combinations of all of the above. I would keep the overall time that you are out there on the hilly route long even if you have to walk most of it. Just run a little more of it every day. My recommendation is to on the weekends still drive somewhere flattish and get a longer slow easy run in so you arent ALWAYS at the limit until you can get an easy run in on hills. When you can you will be super strong on flats!

My recommendation is to on the weekends still drive somewhere flattish and get a longer slow easy run in so you arent ALWAYS at the limit until you can get an easy run in on hills.

Cool, that makes good sense. Burning out from working too hard all the time seemed like a real potential issue with this and I want to run more not less.

I have avoided hills for ever since I've developed the ITBS, but now that I have tamed it, I started to really like running them. It's basically like doing a hard tempo run, but without all the pressure on your knees. Just the muscles are involved. Running downhill is a different story and it can really pulverize your knees and aggravate your ITBS. But the remedy for it is quite easy. Just walk downhill. For a beginner, a longer recovery time is actually recommended. When running hills, don't try to keep a particular tempo, but rather a particular effort. In other words, if it's a really steep hill, don't even bother with a stopwatch. Just run it as fast as you feel comfortable with. Yes, you will be sore for the next couple of days, but that's normal. Muscles always take 2-3 days to completely recover. But after a while, it will only get easier.

I would take the good advice that those here gave on how to approach the hills in an easy way. But I would also try to get in some flatter running. Since you are new to this, constant struggling with hills might be more of a put-off than the 5-10 minute drive. But you will work through that and see what works. I've been running for 20 years and 5 years ago moved to an area that is too hilly for me to get what I want out of my runs. I almost always take the short drive to better running spots. They still have hills,, but it's not all hills, like my immediate area. When I do step out and run my hilly neighborhood, it doesn't save me any time, I do it for a change of pace. Good Luck

Same thing for me when I started C25K back in april- there probably isnt more than 1 mile of flat at one place in the entire county. So I just go out the front door. Hills make you stronger physically but more IMPORTANTLY (to me anyway) is that they make you tough MENTALLY. Just imagine the day in the not too distant future when you run up all the way to the top of that huge "mountain" as you see it now and think- Gee- that wasn't hard at all. Very soon you will get fit enough where you will just say to yourself on one day- I'm going to run all the way to the top of that hill this time without stopping.... and guess what- you will Getting more physically fit is great, but I found out that the MENTAL part of running is the greatest high you can get when you achieve a set goal no matter how small it may seem to others. Do you think the people here on RA that run many marathons are worried about that little hill at this point in their running lives? No ! Why? Because they were once where you and I were way back in the day when they first put that one foot in front of the other. Hills- I aint afraid of no stinking hills!!! (only because I have no choice because of where I live. My hills may be nothing compared to the people that run actual mountains. Keep plugging away- whats that kids story about the train- I think I can, I think I can... I KNOW I can There is no shame in walking when you need to

Great post, slaptear! I've been running for quite some time now... Been once fairly decent... (about 25 pounds ago!) Been out of shape before... My wife's parents have a cottage in Breckenridge, CO. We go there almost every Christmas, a few times during the summer. I just got back from there for a family vacation. It's located somewhere around 9200 feet above sea level. EVERY slight uphill hurts like hell! (of course, to get to the cottage you have to go over about 200m of uphill...) I usually go for a run while there but not much. An hour's run would be a good day. Once--only once--about 4 or 5 years ago, I went up and ran up to the top of Peak 8 (it's known as a ski resort) and I thought that was one hell of an achievement! It was about 1:30 run. Did it only once. I'm 49 now; been coaching this young lady in MN in the past 2 years. The only way to motivate her, the way I know of, is for myself to stubbornly try to get in a good shape. I've been trying to run twice a day, most of the days (4 or 5 times a week). This time, I was determined that, even 16-hours of driving from MN to CO and family vacation will not stop me from running everyday. I didn't miss a day (during a 10-day vacation) and ran twice most days. We got there on Friday and it was snowing (!). Next day was drizzling rain, that tuned into the snow. I went for an hour's run (on the first day) half way up to Peak 8 (I never ran this uphill course on the first day out in Breck before) in the snow. Next day was women's marathon where my good friend, Reiko Tosa, was competing. She had a foot problem that I didn't know about and she dropped out. It was such a heartbreaking experience to watch her suffer so much especially I thought she had a chance to win a medal, even the gold. I decided then that I would go a 2-hour run that I would dedicate to her. As I thought about where to run, there's this "mountain" near-by called Borea's Pass. You can see it from where we are; it goes up and up...and up. I asked my wife how far it goes. She didn't know. Would it flatten out up there? Once about 7 years ago, I attempted to go up there. About 15 minutes into the hill, that was enough. There was a side street and I went in there and later proudly told others how far up I went. They thought I was crazy even attempting to run up. This time, it would have to be a 2-hour run, so I'd need to go for quite some time. The climb started after 12-minutes into the run. The side road I went up to some time ago came about another 12 minutes into the hill. It did, however, feel so much easier that I'm in much better shape this time. Remember Forrest Gump where he just ran and ran and ran...with "Go Your Own Way" for BGM? I kept thinking about that scene... That was one of the most spectacular runs I've ever done in my 30+ years of running. It went from 9200 feet to 11500 feet; total of 4-mile long uphill. It took me 45 minutes of continuous running up (it took me 38 minutes to come down, so I had to run around downtown to make it 2:05). Toward the end, I was getting light headache (seriously!) from lack of oxygen and I was sucking air as hard as I could. I believe a big part of this run was that I was determined to do it; I was determined not to fear the hill (mountain). I'm going to put some story on our website (www.lydiardfoundation.org) blog about hill running and altitude running; but can someone teach me how to post my own picture here? Would love to share some images--I dragged my daughter out and have her take some pictures of me running up there. Like I said, one of the most spectacular views I've ever experienced during the run. It was so exciting I ended up doing it again 2 days before we left Breckenridge--another 2-hours run. A big part; it is in the attitude.

When running up hills, its helpful to keep your posture pretty straight up and not lean over from the waist. I heard this and then tried it and it really seemed to help both mentally (hill didn't look that big when I was more straight up) and the posture improvement helped my breathing.

Do you think the people here on RA that run many marathons are worried about that little hill at this point in their running lives? No ! Why? Because they were once where you and I were way back in the day when they first put that one foot in front of the other.

Great point. The very mild hills near my house would destroy me during C25K, so by the end I only did 2 miles in the 30 minutes. Looking back, I am glad I started on hills. Even though progress was initially slow, I gained a ton of strength that helps flatter runs feel great. I would go out, run slow, and go for it. Modified to fix bad blackberry spelling.