You're headed in the right direction - up!

I'm an authority on nothing and a slacker, but will tell you what I do (when I'm being good and doing the stuff I hate doing).

• Once weekly uphill treadmill hikes - 30 min, 10%-15% at whatever walking pace I can sustain (after a few weeks, I can stay at 15% and start upping the duration or increasing the pace or both).
• Once weekly uphill treadmill runs - 30 min, 5% at MAF heart rate (whatever pace that may be ... increases as the weeks go by; if I stick with it long enough, I increase duration or incline)

Thanks! I'm doing my long runs alternating a rolling hills road route and trails each week. I also did all my TM runs (when forced to stay indoors) on a 0 incline and now I'm using 1%. Hopefully in a week or two I can increase to 1.5 or 2. I'm just worried about getting my trail runs in now that we finally got hit with snow. Half the trails I was planning on using are through ski areas and are now buried.

Nice progress.

Something you might consider doing is making some of your hill work mimic the race route in terms of steepness and/or length of hills. (I bring that up since many/most of our hills are 10-30% slopes including 20% slopes for 2mi. Race prep is more successful when using similar slopes. Your hills may not be that steep, so not a big deal. )

Are they downhill or nordic ski areas? Are they limited to ski only or are there some multi-use trails that you could use? If the snow is fresh, it's, ahh, challenging, but once it's packed either by grooming or other users, it can be almost like dirt for stability - or not, depending on lots of things. You could try snowshoe running for a real workout.   We've finally ended our snow drought and starting to get some, but limited for grooming at lower elevation.

Just an anecdotal observation about tm vs trails. When I was recovering from abdominal surgery (= 0 core strength afterwards) a few years ago, I was using some trails and tm (free pass). I had no problems walking on the tm - even steep slopes - but on a real trail, I was really having trouble moving because of the lack of stability and core strength. So I did cardio on the tm, and general strengthening / returning to life / get some warm sunshine (after the hospital room) very slowly on a trail. I didn't realize how different the two were until then. It's obviously not that noticeable for a healthy individual.

As far as I know Burning River isn't too bad. I did course sweep for 20 miles and then paced a runner for 5 more and had no issues in worse shape than Im in now. I only live a couple hours from the course so I will be running my long runs out there at least once a month when the days get longer and the snow melts. I'm not sure how steep I can take my treadmill but I imagine it will max out at 10 or 15% or my head will be hitting the ceiling. I just want to make sure I continue to practice now so my runs in the spring will be easier (and maybe even faster!).

i also do core strength plus general strength a few times a week. I belong to a CrossFit gym so I go on days when deadlifts, heavy squats, or similar are part of the WOD. On days they are doing MetCon work I stay at home and do Ab Ripper X and/or another P90X video.