**Hill Training Builds Strength—And More**
Hill training strengthens the legs for running better than any other activity I know. At the same time it can help you improve leg speed and enhance your ability to run hills in races. The hill training segments provide a gentle introduction to faster running while improving your capacity to perform speedwork later in the program.

Beginners shouldn’t do hill training. If you’ve run several road races, you could run 1-4 hills (as mentioned below) on one of the short runs during the week. More experienced runners can follow a ‘hill’ program that fits in with their style of training and is dependent on what your goal is.

The Hill Workout

• Walk for 5 minutes
• Warm-up: Jog and walk to a hill—about 10 minutes. Jog a minute and walk a minute (a longer warm-up is fine)
• Do 4 acceleration-gliders.(don’t sprint)
• Walk 5-10 minutes as your warm down
• Choose a hill with a gentle grade—steep hills often cause problems and bestow no additional benefit
• Walk to the top of the hill. Then step off the length of your hill segment by walking down from the top:
  -50 walking steps for those new to hill training.
  -100-150 steps for those who have done very little speed work before.
  -150-200 steps for those who have done speed work, but not within the past 6 months. -200-300 steps for those who have been doing regular speed work
• Mark the place after you count the steps. This is where each hill starts
• Run up the hill for 5 seconds and then down for 5 seconds. Walk for 30-60 seconds. Repeat this 5-10 times. This finalizes the warm-up
• Walk for 3-4 minutes
• Run the first few steps of each hill acceleration at a jog; then gradually pick up the turnover of the feet as you go up the hill
• Get into a comfortable rhythm so that you can gradually increase this rhythm or turnover (# of RPM’s of feet and legs) as you go up the hill
• Run with a relaxed stride, and keep shortening stride as you go up the hill
• It’s OK to huff and puff at the top of the hill—but don’t let the legs get overextended or feel exhausted
• Run over the top of the hill by at least 10 steps
• Jog back to the top of the hill and walk down to recover between the hills. Walk as much as you need for complete recovery after each hill