THE WORKOUT

For a hill workout, you’ll want to find a hill that’s around 100 to 200 metres in length. Don’t pick a hill that’s too steep. Super-steep hills make it harder to maintain proper form, and with hill repeats your form will deteriorate quickly if you choose too steep an incline.

Start off with 15 minutes of easy running, preferably on flat ground, but it’s OK if you have to ascend a hill or two. Follow the easy warmup with 10 minutes of drills and four to six sets of strides (also on flat ground). After that, you’re ready to climb some hills.

For your main set, run repeats of 30 to 60 seconds uphill. Don’t worry if you don’t make it to the top of the hill, just focus on the time. Remember not to go all-out. You’re doing hill repeats after all, so you should run at a pace you can hold for the entire set. After each repetition, take two minutes to walk or jog back down to your starting point.

If you’re just starting out with hill running, aim for anywhere between five and 10 repetitions. As you progress, you can increase the number of reps and the length of each rep (if you started at 30 seconds each, increase to 45, then to 50, up to 60 seconds). Too cool off, finish with an easy 15-minute jog.

Don’t worry about hills. You may never consider them to be fun (or maybe you will!), but they’ll give you a good workout, both physically and mentally. And remember: For every up, there’s a down. If you force yourself up that hill in front of you, you can let gravity do most of the work to take you down the other side.— Ben Snider-McGrath