1 Simple Method to Improve Your Hill Racing Skills
Running is such a great sport because we have such an easy way to compare our progress against runners that are better than we are and can constantly find motivation to improve. On any given day and in any give race, there is always somebody that can beat us.
An important part of racing is being able to effectively run hills.
Does this sound familiar?
You are in a race and you come to a hill.
You charge up the hill; maybe you pass somebody, maybe you don’t.
You just get up to the crest, you realize you are really out of breath, and you start to coast over the top and down the other side…
When somebody just charges past you and is gone before you have a chance to blink.
Has that ever happened to you?
I’d venture to say that that is how most people treat hills, so whether or not anybody has ever passed you right after cresting a hill or not you’ve probably had a similar experience or two.
There are 3 aspects to racing hills:
- Running up the hill (which requires being in very good shape and uses a lot of energy.)
- Running down the hill (which is a skill that takes a surprisingly long time to master)
- Cresting the hill (which is what we’re going to talk about today.)
Learning to properly run up and down hills takes a lot of practice during training, but since this week we are talking about quick tips you can implement right away, try this during your next race:
Charge over the crest of a hill and don’t slack off as you begin to descend.
It seems pretty simple, but most people basically come to a stop when they finish running up a hill because they are so tired.
Instead, what you should do is carry your momentum and continue to expend the exact same (or even more) energy that you used to get up the hill as you crest the top and begin to go down the other side.
You can pass more people at the top of a hill than you can anywhere else, and it’s difficult for them to respond because any momentum or motivation they may have had was spent running up the hill and at least for a few moments they need to regroup and remotivate themselves.
This might mean that you have to run a little slower on the uphill portion. That’s okay.
Just concentrate on not slacking off at the top of a hill and see what happens.
I’ll bet you will be pleasantly surprised…
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Blaine Moore is a running coach in Southern Maine with 20 years of training and racing experience that he shares on his blog at Run To Win.com. Download his free report, The 3 Components of an Effective Workout, to learn why the work you put in during your training is only the third most important factor that determines how well you improve as a runner and an athlete.
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