“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary

After last week’s fartleks, surely it just couldn’t get any more fun, right? Well, maybe.

Unless you live and run only in Flatlandia, you’re going to be running on hills at some point in your running career.  Knowing how to run hills is a very useful skill to develop, and it comes with a bonus – it’s actually useful beyond the immediate benefit of getting to the top.

There’s only one small detail. Running up hills can be hard. Get-inside-your-head hard.  That’s one of the reasons people tend to not like hill running drills – because they think it’s going to really hurt. And they’d be right.

But with the right techniques, you can learn to make hills your secret weapon. Learn to use them to get stronger and even faster. Learn to use hills to your advantage.

Hill drills are your introduction to running hills. You only have to run these drills hard for 30 seconds at a time, with 60 – 75 seconds to recover.  Here are a few things your body learns running hill drills:

– How to take short, powerful strides with a faster cadence
– How to use your arms to drive your legs
– How to use body lean to get up the hill
– How to run efficiently using bigger muscle groups

Because of hills, you’ll get stronger legs, a more efficient running form, and even learn to run at a higher cadence.  All that for a strong 30-second effort.

Anybody can do anything for 30 seconds, right? Lace up your shoes and get ready to work. You can do this!