With the 5km Time Trial on Wednesday we thought some tips on how to race a hill race would be useful.

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Tackling hills during races or important workouts can be daunting. It’s easy to ruin your race by wasting too much energy grinding up a hill or lose big chunks of time by slowing the pace too much.

 

To handle hills effectively in races, learn to run up and down them by effort, not pace. When you approach the base of a hill, you should already have a good feel for the effort you’re maintaining to keep the pace you need. So if you’re running goal race pace already, you should already know what that pace “feels” like. So, when you begin to ascend up the hill, focus on maintaining the same effort. Obviously, your actual pace will slow even though you’re running the same effort (don’t worry, you’ll make the time up on the downhill). The exact time you’ll “lose” on the uphill will be a function of the steepness and length of the hill.

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When you get to the top of the hill and begin the descent, simply maintain the same effort that it took to run your goal pace before you began up the hill. Applying the same effort will now make your pace faster than goal pace. For the most part, this will largely negate most of the time you lost going uphill and you’ll reach the bottom still on target.

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The secret behind this strategy is that by maintaining a consistent effort, you won’t lose crucial energy pushing either up or down the hill. Instead of becoming an energy sapping obstacle, the hill will be just another bump in the road and you’ll be able to maintain your pace and stay strong over the remainder of the course.
 

By improving your form and implementing this simple strategy, you’ll be able to conquer hills of all lengths and inclines.