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Hill work

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Ninky Nonk Mar 2012 5:32pm, 7 Mar 2012 80 posts	Quote Pin Ninky Nonk Apart from running up and down hills - what else does hill work or hill sprints involve? Is it as simple as running up and down? Can anyone suggest any good sessions? What are these sessions trying to achieve?
rf_fozzy Mar 2012 6:09pm, 7 Mar 2012 2,035 posts	Quote Pin rf_fozzy Depends on what you are trying to work? Short hills are like short intervals. Long hills are like long intervals. Only because you aren't running as fast, with as much pounding as you would be on the flat, or in circles like on a track, the risk of injury is lessened somewhat. Our club do a number of sessions. For "short hills" we have a hill of about 300m length that we do 2sets of 5 reps with a longer recovery jog in between. Recoveries back down are EASY and should take AT LEAST as long as it took you run up (I usually take a bit longer), but they shouldn't be so long your heart rate drops to rest. For "longer hills" we do either 30mins continuous of a half mile long hill or something like 6x3mins or 4x4mins up a hill (similar style recoveries back down as above). For "very long hills" we have a hill of about 1km that we do 3 reps up, with recoveries back down. Some fell runners in the club have been known to do hill reps up Pen Y Ghent in the Dales - that's a 3mile run up to the summit, 3 mile run back down and then repeat. Normally, they manage to only do about 2 of these reps!
rf_fozzy Mar 2012 6:10pm, 7 Mar 2012 2,036 posts	Quote Pin rf_fozzy As a corrollary, you can also do shorter hills as well - we do these on the grass - we have a loop of about 3/4 mile that incorporates about 5 hills, all of which are no more than 100-150m. For this the recoveries are shorter and we do about 5 repetitions.
Ninky Nonk Mar 2012 6:41pm, 7 Mar 2012 81 posts	Quote Pin Ninky Nonk Sounds good. Have a 300m long hill nearby I might abuse tonight. Never done a specific session like these before so fancy a change. How often do you do these?
rf_fozzy Mar 2012 6:55pm, 7 Mar 2012 2,037 posts	Quote Pin rf_fozzy I'm the wrong person to ask that question to! I love hill sessions! Generally, I do at least one hill session every other week, but have been known to do them every week or on occasion even two hill sessions within a week.
Wriggling Snake Mar 2012 7:23pm, 7 Mar 2012 1,972 posts	Quote Pin Wriggling Snake our club does a hil pyramid session occasionally, just to mix it up. The slope is about 400m or so long with 10 lamposts, so we go up hill to lampost 2,4,6,8,10,8,6,4,2 at a good 10k pace (the slope is steep initially, less so towards the top), and jog down hill, with the option of a short recovery at the bottom of 30-60 secs, whole session last about 30 mins
Vancouver Jogger Mar 2012 7:39pm, 7 Mar 2012 2,136 posts	Quote Pin Vancouver Jogger I've found that hill sessions in the autumn can be tricky as the hill I use is covered in acorns - a bit like running on marbles
ReturnoftheJuddi Mar 2012 7:40pm, 7 Mar 2012 1,194 posts	Quote Pin ReturnoftheJuddi WS I like the sound of the hill pyramid session! Sounds more interesting than straight up and down... might have to give it a try sometime.