The Hills are calling

Hill training - Every Thursday. It is brutal, challenging but much needed specially when training for hilly terrains like you'll encounter at the SF Marathon. 

It's a short hill and you climb up, trying not to sprint through but pushing yourself enough that your heart rate starts to hit your 90% peak or so. Then you turn back around and run back down on repeat. 

Uphill
The key is to manage your stride efficiently while trying to breathe at a consistent rate. This can mean you have to slow down a bit or make your steps shorter. Use your torso to lean forward a bit and use that upper body weight to pull you along. The legs follow suit. 

Downhill
Turns out, running down the hill requires a whole bunch of work too, you would think gravity would do its job and it does and then some. The chance of injury is high if you accelerate out of control. So make sure you keep your pace under control, watch your steps as you 

A good stretch before an after the training is very important, don't forget that! 

It was interesting to see the heart rate graph after the run. It is pretty clear how quickly the HR shot up as you hit the peak of the hill and when you start to trend down the heart rate slows down quickly too. Notice on #5 and #8, the cool down is slightly longer and the reason for that is....water breaks.

​Stay hydrated, stay healthy and keep running!