“Hills are what you make of them. If you force yourself to like them, you’ll get better at them.”
- Chris “John” Roth
The Athens Authentic Marathon boasts around 1,300 feet of elevation gain. If Boston owns Heartbreak Hill, then Athens is the Heartbreak Marathon. Chris and I have been watching countless YouTube videos of people racing the course. There’s numerous travel blogs and homespun inspirational GoPro footage backed by epic soundtrack music, but the one most burned into my subconscious is the national Greek broadcast of the race leaders in 2022. We watched the frontrunner bonk so hard on the last hill that you could discern the exact footfall on which he was done for. It hurt just to watch. We’ve all been there. And Athens requires that you go there.
We knew what we were getting ourselves into. I live in southwest Portland, and anyone who’s run in this part of Portland knows that if you’re looking for a pancake flat run out your door, you have limited options. Since moving here in 2021, I’ve learned to make hills my strength. The saying, “hills are speedwork in disguise” has never been more true for me than the past two years. My first half marathon this year had over 700 feet of gain. I guess the flat races just seemed too boring??
Whether we’re masochists, or just enjoy a good challenge, hills are character development. The very first workout I did in college, I genuinely believed I was going to die. We ran Hill Road, a long rolling gravel road just outside of McMinnville, OR. The workout was to run from McMinnville to Carlton, a nearby town. I’d never done a double-digit run in high school, let alone one that hilly. It was late afternoon and so hot that when the gravel road turned into pavement, the bottoms of my shoes were sticking to patches of melted asphalt in the cracks of the road. I remember our head coach picking everyone slower than me up in his truck and driving them the rest of the way. But he let me keep running. My first experience out on Hill Road, and through subsequent workouts in college, changed the way I thought about hills. It taught me to respect them instead of fear them. Hills are a test of strength and heart. How much are you willing to put yourself through to get better?
I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately, as marathon training continues to get harder, and I’m adding more long climbs to my routine. As with most things, hills are a little easier with help from friends. I recently reached out to many of my college teammates to gather their wisdom, memories, and advice about running hills. These people all know how to get up an incline (and fast) so from here, I let their wise words take over.
“I live in what's called the Edmonds Bowl. I'm at the very bottom of said bowl so anytime I run I have no choice but to run up a hill at some point to get anywhere. It can be brutal, but I find hills really helpful. If I'm feeling unreasonably cocky about my running, they knock me down a few pegs and keep me humble. This, in turn, motivates me to train harder. If I'm feeling sluggish and desolate on hills, I'm still left with a sense of satisfaction after the run regardless of how many profanities left my mouth during it. Hills can also give the ultimate morale boost when you run them a different day expecting that pudding leg feeling again but end up feeling halfway decent on them instead. They're a tangible way of tracking progress against your past self.”
- Siena Noe
“Hills are definitely a love and hate relationship. At the end of every hill workout I take a second to look down the hill to help myself actually understand what I just accomplished. Running hill repeats truly taught me the meaning “one step at a time.” You can’t think about the next rep, it’s all about completing the one you’re in.”
- Calli Dowdy-Brandon
“Hills help a ton with your endurance and mental fortitude. They may be one of the hardest parts of training, but help in the long run, especially on race day. They have helped me through numerous amounts of tough times during races, and something I preach to my athletes that I coach at the high school level.”
- Chris Poole
“Regarding training, hills are the the greatest bang for your buck to gain strength, endurance and (maybe most importantly guts). On any given day you can be attacking a hill that to the lesser man in a motor vehicle may seem like nothing more than a brief annoyance to the cruise control. However, for you, it’s like scaling Olympus. Just remember that you’re not Sisyphus and the torture will soon end and, when you reach the peak, you’ll never look back and regret you did it.”
- Alex Mangan
“Hills sprints are one the best ways at developing running power, but require a lot humility and respect. There’s a reason few use them regularly in a regimen. They’ll make anyone weep, regardless of fitness level.”
- Flint Martino
“For me running hills was one of the hardest parts of racing – when you’re already out of breath and pushing yourself as hard as you can, adding a fight against gravity seemed cruel… and it made me feel slow. But it was also a gut check, if I pushed it through the hill I felt stronger. Now that I do more trail runs I’ve learned to appreciate them more and sink into them. Enjoy would be the wrong word, but I don’t fight against them as much. And when I’m training for races they add a lot of value – they add strength both physically and mentally.”
- Hannah Greider
“Hill workouts stick with you. I still remember the hills we ran for high school cross, ‘king of the hill’ ‘crazy 8s.’ The names from college ‘hill road’ ‘dead dog’ ‘cemetery.’ I have a distinct memory of sitting on the bus on the way out to run hill road and feeling progressively more vomit-y the closer we got and the road switched from pavement to gravel and just knowing we were about to feel fucking terrible. But then you get out there and it does feel fucking terrible but there’s also something really addicting about that feeling of pushing up a hill knowing that the hills are tough but we’re tougher. That whole if you can take one more step take it until before you know it you’ve gone 8 miles and survived all the nasty rollers.”
- Sarah RR
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