Workout of the Week: Drills and Hills

I love short hill repeats, full stop. Whether you’re training for a mile, an ultramarathon, or anything in between, regular bouts of 30-60 second repeats at a hard effort will help to lay a solid foundation of early-season strength, non-specific speed, and overall fitness that you can build on for a few months to follow. The “Drills and Hills” session is what I call a muscles-and-mechanics workout: 1. It will improve your muscular strength, power, and endurance. 2. It helps promote and/or reinforce sound running mechanics. Do this workout once a week for 4-6 weeks and you’ll notice a difference not just in how much stronger you feel running uphill, but also in how smooth and efficient you are on flat ground. It’s a low-risk, high-reward session that forces you to work but won’t leave you too wrecked. Here are the details:

What: Two sets of running drills followed by 4-6 x 20-second strides on flat ground (i.e., accelerate for 5 seconds, spend the next 10 seconds at near-top speed, and then gradually decelerate to a jog over the final 5 seconds. Catch your breath for 40-60 seconds and then repeat 3-5 more times). After performing the drills, run 8-16 x 30-60-second uphill repeats at 3K-5K EFFORT (i.e. I’d call this 85-90% effort. It’s hard running but not all-out) on a moderately steep, runnable grade (~4-8% incline) with an easy walk-jog downhill for recovery between reps. Note: It’s important that you focus on effort, not pace, when running these repeats since the hill will slow you down. (This is a good thing!) Set a mark on the first repeat and aim to match or better it the rest of the workout. Also, pay attention to how you’re moving up the hill: Focus on maintaining good form from start to finish with an upright posture and a healthy tension through your torso. Pump your arms and and use short, quick, powerful strides to get yourself up the hill.

Warmup/Cooldown: Warm up before the workout with 15-30 minutes of easy running. Cool down after the workout with 10-20 minutes of easy running.

Why: 1. This workout promotes and reinforces sound running mechanics. 2. It will improve your muscular strength, power, and endurance. 3. It helps to develop a solid foundation of fitness to layer the remainder of training cycle upon.

Where: A moderately steep hill that takes you ~30-60 seconds to run up at a hard effort will do the trick. Roads, dirt, or grass are all fine options. A treadmill works, too.

When: This is a great workout to do weekly early in a training cycle. I’ll often assign it once a week for 4-6 consecutive weeks and add 2 reps/week, starting with 8 in Week 1 and progressing to 16 reps in Week 5.