Hill Running

Photo by Jeremy Lapak on Unsplash

I bring up hill running in this post because 1) there are a lot of hills in the Scottish Highlands, 2) there are hills on all of my road running routes, and 3) the short run of week 7 featured a particularly unpleasant hill-running experience.

Week 7 is done and dusted and everything went fine. There was only one point where I considered quitting and turning back and that was on the first interval of run number 2. The second run is always the "short" run of the week, and for some reason for me it's always the hardest (I'm trying very hard not to develop a psychological fear of the short run, but it has to be said it 's always the one that makes me suffer most). 

What didn't help was a hill climb early on in the run. I've run up this hill a few times now. It's nothing to write home about. It isn't huge and doesn't have a massive gradient. What it did have that day though was a very strong head wind trying to push me back down again. This meant more effort and more pain reaching the top. When I did reach the top I was so tired and achy I seriously doubted whether I'd complete the run. But, after a pause of 10 seconds or so I carried on. I reached a tree-lined bit of road and the shelter it offered helped me complete the run, plus I was assisted by the tail wind on the way back. 

So I decided to look for some tips from the experts on how to tackle hills. I can't avoid them, or the gales that blow here all the time, so I may as well learn how to keep suffering to a minimum.

Here are the tips I found for running uphill:

• remember hills make you stronger and faster
• maintain a fast cadence
• keep swinging your arms
• don't lean forward from the waist when climbing
• stay tall
• adopt a shorter stride length
• don't attack the hill, maintain your effort level
• don't look at your feet
• maintain good knee lift

  Onto week 8 now. I just reached the lofty goal of running for 10 uninterrupted minutes. By the end of this week that should have increased to 20.