Climb to Your Goals Hitting the hills for strength and speed
Most runners reflexively regard hills as enemies in races but
grudging accomplices in building fitness. We know hills are
"good for us" even though they slow us down, rendering the
effort invested in surmounting them far out of proportion to
ground-covering returns. But our reluctance to attack them with
fervor—after all, who wants to suffer so grandly without at
least nice quick times to jot down in the log for
validation?—may leave us in the dark in terms of how to best fit
hill workouts into our training programs. We’re told that
running hills builds the ineffable asset known as "strength,"
and we’ve also heard that hills can augment raw speed as well.
But often left unexplored is how specific types of hill running
can benefit us. This article underscores the basic principles of
hill running and how to incorporate hills into regimens aimed at
a variety of competitive endeavors—short road events, marathons,
cross country and hill and mountain race