(Up) Hill Sessions = Speed Work

With me currently in rest mode and already feeling a bit twitchy, I thought i'd cast my mind to next week's planned hill session.



Before Rep 1





After Rep 8







Why hills you may add? Well running uphill recruits more muscle fibers due to the concentric action of your leg muscles, i.e. your leg is not fully extended when you have to "toe off" so the muscles have to work harder. It also works the quads, which get woefully underutilised when running on the flat. And finally it improves your general running economy by forcing you to drive with you arms and lift with your knees!

All this transposes to an improved speed when you drop back to running on the flat!

And to top it all off.... it may not seem like it but, you put around 1/3 less stress on your knees running up hill!

My hill sessions typically include 8 reps of 200m @ (20-30 degree slope) taking around 1 min -> 1.5mins

This means you can have a good hard training session in around 30-40mins!

However it is worth taking your time and walking down the slope after each rep and resisting the temptation to run down. Walking allows you to regain your breath clear some of the lactic acid in your legs and avoid the nasty eccentric contractions of downhill running which often lead to knee pain and DOMS.

Overtraining + The Performance Curve

My gym in the morning and run in the evening regime couldn't last. Over the past three days I clocked up 11 miles not including the gym sessions. Yesterday's run can only be described as the "super plods", with my 5K times being 1.5mins then 3mins slower over the past two days. Even though my time was slower, my heart rate was elevated and struggling to drop below 180bpm during my runs, always a good sign I've overdone it! And to top it all off my right knee and right shin were not tip-top to say the least.

On the plus side, if there is one, is that my weight has dropped to 14st 10lbs, and i plan to take the next two days off, to allow my tired limbs to recover.

So I'm hoping that "Super Compensation Phase" will take me right through till September's Half-marathon! OK that might be wishful thinking, but a couple of days off should do me some good. Though I'm running out of time rather quickly ahead of the Men's Health 10K on the 17th June!

I'm planning to get 3 hill sessions done before then, with a view to boosting my speed without putting too much impact on my knees! Though I think my best speed work would be shifting another 10lbs before then!