Mountain training

MoonDancer

Hi
I'm training for the Warriors run this year, I'm just beginning and following the daniels running formula to improve my running.
Saturday I did the top part of the Mountain run, and I was useless in climbing the steep part of the Mountain, I was wondering along with training regularly would it be a good idea to up on my weights in the gym for squats to build up more muscle. Would that help? Currently I'm squating 20kg but could handle more. What do you think?

Slogger Jogger

Hi,
Never did like weights in the gym so I can't comment whether they can assist with this. The best practice is to do hill specific training. Slow runs in the hills - progressively longer week on week, uphill intervals (run uphill, jog back, repeat). Enduro would have posted on other threads about the value of mountain biking for hill runners, so thats another option.
Regards,
SJ

Enduro

Yup, biking really improves your climing abilty, in my experience. Probably the most effective training would be road cycling in hilly areas. You're bringing your quads into play a lot more with ascending, and this is why the cycling really helps. I'm no expert on weights training, so I can't help you with that part of the question.

Peterx

Interval sessions on the actual hill may be of help.
90 seconds or 2 minutes on, two minutes off, up hard and down easy a few times to get the legs used to the climbing of the real race gradient.
As all the lads say, biking up hills really helps and can be done on days when your legs are too sore/twangy to run because there's no impact stresses in cycling (assuming you don't crash! )
If you do decide to cycle make sure to get your saddle height correct or else you can very quickly find yourself with sore knees - kinda counter productive..
good luck

MoonDancer

Thanks for all the replies!
I don't have a bike though, pity as I would love one!.
What are interval sessions?
Ideally I'd love to climb the Mountain at least once a week, but I don't want to go alone, god know's who you could meet there! lol
There's a good few hills around that I could run up & down, how often should I do the hill training?

Slogger Jogger

Intervals are basically sessions of fast work with intervals of slower runs. e.g

6 x 400s would simply be a 400m fast run, followed by about the same of a slow jog (to recover), then go ahead. Repeat 'til you've done your required number. For the hills, you could push yourself on the uphill bit for your chosen distance, say 200m, then jog slowly back to your starting point, then go ahead...

MoonDancer

Thanks Slogger Jogger! How often should I do hills a week and how many metres uphill would you recommend to start with, and the max amount of metres to work up to in the near future? See I'm just starting off so I'm completly clueless about this.
Thanks again

Peterx

Hills are tough, especially downhills. Maybe a max of one hill session a week but more likely 2 sessions over a 3 week spell until your poor muscles start to adapt.

With the hill intervals maybe start off at 3x2minutes uphill taking 3/4 minutes easy jogging between each uphill effort. Gradually (over many weeks) build it up to 8x2mins and then start reducing the recovery time.
This is only one of a myriad of approaches.

Da interweb is great but a local running club or some other runners to train with and ask is best by far, experienced runners will see exactly how you are going and might be able to suggest better training sessions then randomers on the web like me:)

Enduro

As web randomers go though, you won't get much better advice than from PeterX, as he's an Irish international mountain runner.

MoonDancer

Ooh, Lucky me!! I'm getting advice from the best here!!
Thats great info, just what I needed to know.
Did a run today on a really hilly road, but I'm gonna concentrate on doing hill training on a much larger hill.
Sorry now to hound ye with all the questions, would you recommend having a specific day to just concentrate on hills alone, or should I incorporate it into the actual run itself?
Thanks so much for helping me out

Slogger Jogger

You could do either to be honest. The marathon schedule I'm following has dedicated hill repeat days, every 3 weeks. In which case its a bit of a warm up, your interval repeats, then warm down. As the schedule progresses and as your fitness builds the no of interval repeats increases too.