Unleashing Your Uphill Running Power
One of the most common questions I’m asked is how to improve uphill running. Often this comes with athletes wanting to incorporate lots of big vert to make them an uphill speed demon.
Now take a seat and brace yourself for the big reveal: lots of slow uphill running does not make you fast at running uphill. Does it make you stronger? Most likely. Does it build your endurance for races with lots of big climbs? Sure. But does it make you faster? I (and lots of scientific research) would argue it does not.
Bear with me as we take a detour into road marathons. Let’s take a runner with years of running experience and a solid 4-hour marathon time, about 9 minute per mile pace. She runs 40-50 miles per week, mostly in the 10-11 minute mile range. She wants to get to the next level and significantly drop her marathon time to the 3:30s. Would you recommend more running at the same pace as the best path for a breakthrough? Or would you recommend similar or maybe slightly less mileage but adding a tempo run during the week, regular interval workouts, and some fast finish long runs at or slightly below goal marathon pace? Chances are the latter approach will be more likely to result in a breakthrough, and there is a huge volume of research to support this.
Now let’s take a runner who averages 13-minute miles on uphill grades of ~10%. They want to make a big leap and get to 10-11-minute miles on these uphills. While most of us intuitively grasp the approach to get faster in the marathon, many take an opposite approach in this case and want to pile on more uphill running volume. With the runner’s current fitness, the additional uphill running would also be 13-14-minute miles or maybe even slower given the high volume and fatigue.
What happens for this runner? The best case is this runner gets efficient at running 13-14 minute miles uphill and perhaps can hold that pace for longer. Other likely outcomes are stagnating performance or even decreasing performance. I’ve talked to many runners who think the answer is to pile on lots of uphill running and are frustrated to find they keep getting slower. In short, the fear of the vert we will face on race day race causes us overtrain uphill volume.
Now here is the secret: uphill running economy is highly correlated to level and downhill running. Translation: if you are a faster runner in general, you will be a faster uphill runner. This study found a 91% correlation between level surface running economy and uphill running economy! Kilian is regarded as one of the greatest uphill runners of all time. He also has sub 30-minute 10km speed and routinely has training blocks and specific workouts focused on flat, fast running and improving running economy.
What does this mean from a training standpoint? The best way to get faster on all terrain is to strategically incorporate faster running efforts targeted to improving key performance indicators such as lactate threshold, Vo2Max, or velocity at lactate threshold. Strides, hill strides, intervals, hill intervals, and tempo runs are beneficial for running on all terrain – flats, downhills, and uphills.
To provide a personal case study, let’s take the climb in UTMB from Champex-Lac to La Giete. This 7-mile section starts around mile 80 and features 2,800 feet of climbing, most of which comes in 3 difficult miles. Given how tired you will already be at this point, you might think that volume of mileage and vertical in training would win the day.
Prior to my 2017 UTMB, I did not include any intensity in my training. My training was 100% slow volume and vertical, and I was too tired all of the time to do any structured workouts. During the race I covered this section in 2h34min and was struggling mightily by this point.
In 2019, I ran a similar mileage to 2017 but a bit more vertical. However, after two years my body had adjusted considerably to running vertical, so I was fresher and able to incorporate a bit more intensity in my training. I would often include uphill tempo pushes on long runs, for example 2x15 min hard uphill in the course of a mountainous long run. I closed better at UTMB in 2019, hitting this section in 2h25min.
My training was quite different in 2021. I ran a bit less vertical and a lot less mileage. However, I ran strides or hill strides two times a week. Most weeks I would do two hard workouts including intervals, hill intervals, or tempo runs (sometimes in combination). While there were some high-volume weeks, most of the time I was fresh enough to push hard in key workouts. I was worried about the lower training volume and in particular the lack of big long runs, but I felt much fitter.
When the climb to La Giete came around, I had a different gear, finishing this section in 1h50min. My uphill running ability was night and day from 2017 on lower volume but much smarter training. The beauty here is that improving your general running economy is the rising tide that lifts all boats, including your uphill running boat.
There is a caveat that the relationship breaks down to some extent when the slope gets very steep, so for the steepest races there are additional training aspects to consider that I will circle back to in a later post. There is also an important place for course-specific training, especially when you are six to eight weeks out from a goal race.
But if you have more than two months before your goal race, the next time you are tempted to slog uphill in an effort to unleash your inner mountain goat, think again and instead consider focusing your energy on an interval workout or some hill repeats. You’ll be surprised where it takes you!