MORE ON HILL RUNNING - FOCUS ON MAINTAINING THE SAME EFFORT!!!!

Tackling hills during races or even important workouts can be daunting. It’s easy to ruin your race by wasting too much energy pounding up a hill or fall far behind by slowing the pace too much.  When you approach the base of a hill, you should already have a good feel for the effort you are working at. Meaning, if you’re running goal race pace already, you should already know what that pace “feels” like. As you begin to ascend up the hill, focus on maintaining the same effort. Obviously, your actual pace will slow, even though you are running the same effort (don’t worry, you’ll make it 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.  When you crest 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. Contrary to running uphill, this effort will now make your actual 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.  By maintaining a consistent effort, you won’t lose crucial energy pushing either up or down the hill. Therefore, 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.