When you are in training, don’t get disheartened if you have difficulty running up hills. I find that it doesn’t matter if you walk and jog up the hills; the most important thing is to do the distance. And when training, try to run up at least 50% of the hills ‘with effort’, but you can walk the rest.
I find that it makes a big difference to my performance if I train with hills as opposed to training without them, but it doesn’t necessarily make a big difference whether I run all the way up or walk and jog up the hills.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1FJD-eS2X8 This interval style (fartlek) of hill training works quite well for me because it means that my muscles get used to the action and the strain, yet my overall heart rate isn’t pushed too hard.
So that when it comes to a big hill in an event, such as ‘Heartbreak Hill’ in the City2Surf, I can generally jog up it with minimal discomfort. In fact, one year I remember running along watching the ground and the people around me so intently that I didn’t realise that I was going uphill until I was rounding the bend half way up Heartbreak Hill.
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Update April 2013
My City2Surf Training Program is now an eBook
‘How to Break Your Fitness Slump and Comfortably Finish a Fun Run’
My full City2Surf training program is now available as an eBook from all leading online bookstores and contains a link to download the training schedule as an iCal file, so you can import it into your calendar.
Also, feel free to join my free Facebook training group the City2Surf 100 day Challenge.