Friday, June 02, 2006
Zen and the art of Running Hills
Growing up in Chicago, I didn't have much call to learn how to run hills. A long time ago they had all been bull-dozed and dumped into the lake to create more land. When I came to St. Louis, I was generally unprepared for all of the hills. Here. In St. Louis. You can imagine my surprise when I visited San Francisco. But I digress. Over time I've learned some of the tricks to running hills.
There are a lot of reasons that we run hills in the first place. The most obvious is that there are frequently no better routes to run that up and over the hill. But we look for hills because for a given pace and a given distance, adding climbing into your run makes it more difficult. Running hills helps build leg strength. Hills also use a slightly different set of muscles than flats. A long run can also be mentally broken into pieces using hills as landmarks. One other benefit is that a hill provides a focus during which you can work on your running form.
When I notice that I'm starting up a hill, I focus on my running form. Mentally I shift from third gear into first gear. I shorten my stride and maintain or increase my turnover (leg RPM) slightly. I relax my shoulders and my face. I lean forward into the hill slightly. I concentrate on swinging my arms straight forward and backward and not side to side. I focus my gaze on a spot about 25-30 feet ahead of me. I keep my momentum going as I crest the hill and slowly stretch my stride back to its original length as I keep going.
When I notice that I'm going down a slope, I have a different set of questions to address. I need to figure out how aggressive I want to be with the hill. The answer to that question determines whether I'll keep a neutral lean (aggressive) or a backwards body lean (passive). With a neutral lean, the natural thing to do is speed up and let the hill carry you away. This is fine as long as you are still able to control yourself. With a backwards lean, you are applying some breaking force which helps in keeping you in control. As you speed up, you can increase your stride length a little bit, but I'd look more to increasing your turnover. Increasing your stride length beyond its natural state makes you more susceptible to injury.
You can specifically add hill work to your workout with either incidental hills or interval hills. Incidental hills are the hills that just happen to fall into your running route. You get to work on your hill running form as you complete other workouts. Just be sure that you account for the hill in your workout plan. Interval hills are another form of interval running. Select a route with a hill that's 200-400m long. Do several intervals of striding to the hill, running up the hill and then jogging back down.
With some practice and focus you can make hills a strength in your running program. After doing River to River for the last three years, I look forward to the hills that I encounter in my runs and I can tell that my favorable outlook on hills carried over to my racing.
There are a lot of reasons that we run hills in the first place. The most obvious is that there are frequently no better routes to run that up and over the hill. But we look for hills because for a given pace and a given distance, adding climbing into your run makes it more difficult. Running hills helps build leg strength. Hills also use a slightly different set of muscles than flats. A long run can also be mentally broken into pieces using hills as landmarks. One other benefit is that a hill provides a focus during which you can work on your running form.
When I notice that I'm starting up a hill, I focus on my running form. Mentally I shift from third gear into first gear. I shorten my stride and maintain or increase my turnover (leg RPM) slightly. I relax my shoulders and my face. I lean forward into the hill slightly. I concentrate on swinging my arms straight forward and backward and not side to side. I focus my gaze on a spot about 25-30 feet ahead of me. I keep my momentum going as I crest the hill and slowly stretch my stride back to its original length as I keep going.
When I notice that I'm going down a slope, I have a different set of questions to address. I need to figure out how aggressive I want to be with the hill. The answer to that question determines whether I'll keep a neutral lean (aggressive) or a backwards body lean (passive). With a neutral lean, the natural thing to do is speed up and let the hill carry you away. This is fine as long as you are still able to control yourself. With a backwards lean, you are applying some breaking force which helps in keeping you in control. As you speed up, you can increase your stride length a little bit, but I'd look more to increasing your turnover. Increasing your stride length beyond its natural state makes you more susceptible to injury.
You can specifically add hill work to your workout with either incidental hills or interval hills. Incidental hills are the hills that just happen to fall into your running route. You get to work on your hill running form as you complete other workouts. Just be sure that you account for the hill in your workout plan. Interval hills are another form of interval running. Select a route with a hill that's 200-400m long. Do several intervals of striding to the hill, running up the hill and then jogging back down.
With some practice and focus you can make hills a strength in your running program. After doing River to River for the last three years, I look forward to the hills that I encounter in my runs and I can tell that my favorable outlook on hills carried over to my racing.
# posted by mypetrock : 7:34 AM
