As a trail runner, or speed hiker you will encounter hills. Doing it across an ultra-marathon distance, you will encounter a lot of them... and they can be brutal.
Many people when starting out training for their first ultra entirely neglect training for hills, simply focusing on the essential 'Time on your feet' and distance. If you ignore hill work you do so at your peril. What is it about hills in an ultra?
Depending on the frequency and steepness them, and at what stage in an event you encounter them, they can have different effects.
1. Ascents - Some hills are closer to small mountains, and for your first couple of ultras you may choose a hilly route rather than a mountain one. Either way you need to train for the type of climbing you are doing. Ascents can leave you needing to use hands and legs to get up them. Some are so steep that even running poles wont benefit you, you need to get on all fours. The problem with aggressive ascents is the energy use. You can easily spend 5-10 mins on a short but very steep climb with your heart rate in the 160-175 bpm mark. That is burning your muscle glycogen away like a furnace. Once that is is gone it is gone. Even long less severe inclines will push your heart rate into the 150's and 160's depending if walking or running and that will have the same effect. It will empty your tank fast.
The next part of ascents is it focuses on different muscles. Core, quad, calf, and glute power is hugely beneficial. I love steep hills for this as this kind of power needed to get up steep inclines is one of my best assets in what I'm doing. Muscle strain in these areas if you have not prepared them in your training is a high risk.
2. Descents - What goes up must come down, and descents have probably the highest risk of injury compared to any other part of an ultra.
It's physics. When you come down gravity and weight dramatically increase the forces going through your body. Ankles, knees and back will take their biggest hammering coming down. Notice how when your legs are tired and stiff it hurts much more coming down a flight of stairs rather than going up them? You not only have the vertical forces of going down to contend with, you have the lateral forces too. This can wreak havoc on your ankle and knee ligaments. The chances of losing your foot placement are much higher and I have seen knee dislocations, ankle sprains and back strains when tiring legs come down steep hills. I broke my ankle last september running down a hill trail that was uneven even though my body felt fresh. Go with caution. Even running smaller declines over longer stretches of distance and time will create a shearing force on knees that you can feel when you jog down a more gentle hill. Add that up over longer distance and it can cause some big problems.
3. Timing - Encounter a hill section early on, and your legs, tendons, etc are fresh and you will be fine. You will likely be enthusiastic and at a risk of going too quickly and burning precious energy without putting it back. Hit a hilly section midway and your concentration could be waning increasing injury risk and fatigue may also be kicking in. Hit steep hills towards the end, and all of the above risk increases dramatically, and you might get a little emotional to add into it as nothing makes your heart sink than hitting 90km, just reaching the top of a steep hill you've struggled up on jelly-legs, and then seeing the next hill waiting for you.
The Solution
1. Training
Get hills into your runs. Hill repeats are excellent both up and down. Try and vary the steepness. Also flights of stairs. If you can find outdoor steps and just go up and down, that'll work all you need.
Step ups / step downs. A Gym step set to quite high is very good. The high step setting hits your glutes and quads hard. The step downs hit your knee stabilising muscles hard.
Bike climbs. Get out of the saddle and go up hills. Great for quad and glute strength
Core work - planks, deadlifts, leg raises, swiss ball crunches, etc
Lunges. Great for strengthening knees against the shearing
Weighted - stick your pack on and load it up. This would be a progression on the above.
2. Fuelling
Fuel for the mile ahead, not the mile you've run. If you know hills are coming then make sure you top off the tanks a good time before you get to them.
on aggressive hills, when you get to the top make sure you top off with some high glucose type gels, sweets, energy bar, etc. You will have dipped into your reserves getting up them. If you have long climbs then make sure you have high energy snacks above that you will keep putting in all the way up.
3. Mindset
Love the Hills. Seriously. Do not feel intimidated or hesitant. Be excited and in attack mode for them. Relish them. Embrace them. Defeat them. Visualise this.
4. Pacing
Go steady up hill and be cautious coming down. I use poles and they help hugely to protect the body on aggressive descents. It can feel great running down longer easier descents but ease up. If you can feel it in your knee then you are probably going to fast as your knees will suffer if you're not careful. It's a long way to go when your knees are wrecked.
A word here on technique. I've found very short, quick steps are much more effective to get up aggressive hills. There is a temptation to lengthen the stride. Don't. Lean into the hill, if you use poles then use them well here. Short strides save the hips and back and ease strain on the knees. Coming down, do so with care. Really feel how your placing your feet and try and avoid feeling that you are coming down on the heel. That'll murder your back. On easier run-worthy descents, just allow your legs to turn over easy and let gravity pull you down. Go upright rather than leaning forward and try to land lightly on your forefoot to absorb a little more of the impact.
To give you an idea of what awaits me, here is a snippet of one sections of hills I'm facing approaching 50km on my challenge... Wish me luck :-)
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