Favorite Workout: Conquer the Hill, Dial in Your Pace: Hill Climb + Threshold
by GRP Runner Aubrey Myjer
I’m excited to share a challenging workout that combines the power of hill climbing with the efficiency of threshold training. This session is designed to boost your aerobic capacity, improve your running economy, and enhance your overall performance.
Training Benefits
This workout offers a potent combination of benefits:
Improved VO2 max: The sustained effort of the hill climb pushes your cardiovascular system to its limits, increasing your body's ability to utilize oxygen during exercise.
Enhanced running economy: Hill running forces your body to recruit more muscle fibers, improving your overall running efficiency on both hills and flat terrain.
Lactate threshold development: The threshold repetitions that follow the hill climb help raise your lactate threshold, allowing you to maintain a faster pace for longer distances.
Mental toughness: Tackling a challenging hill followed by high-intensity repetitions builds mental resilience, crucial for race-day performance.
Injury prevention: Hill running strengthens muscles, tendons, and ligaments in ways that flat running can't, potentially reducing your risk of common running injuries.
The Workout
Warm-up: Begin with a 15-20 minute easy jog on flat terrain, followed by dynamic stretching to get the body ready for the work that follows.
Hill climb:
Find a challenging hill that takes about 15-30 minutes to climb. If you’re not able to find a hill that big, find the biggest hill you have access to and do repetitions.
Run up the hill at a hard effort (about 80-85% of your max heart rate).
Ideally this will be one big push, but if you need to do multiple repetitions, repeat this process for a total of 15-30 minutes.
Recovery: After completing the hill climbs, jog down the hill or, if doing reps, take a 5-minute easy jog on flat ground to recover.
Threshold Repetitions:
On flat terrain, perform 3-5 repetitions of 3 minutes each at your threshold pace (the pace you could maintain for about an hour in a race).
Take 2 minutes of easy jogging between each repetition.
Cool-down: Finish with a 10-20 minute easy jog, followed by proper cool down routine (stretching, foam rolling, eating a small snack).
Remember to listen to your body and adjust the workout as needed. This session is challenging, but do your best to keep the effort levels within the appropriate zones, especially on the threshold repetitions, so you’re not leaving it all out there on a training day. I hope that you enjoy and happy running!