Living in hilly areas and Comrades Marathon training
Living in hilly areas and Comrades Marathon training
Welcome to Ask Coach Parry once again. Thabogo got a question in today. The question reads as follows: "I am currently training for Two Oceans and the Comrades Marathon and I am following your programme for a bronze medal.
I have run five of each. I have already qualified sub 4'20 in your March programme. I live in a hilly suburb.
What route must I choose during training with regards to hills or do I still need to do a hill set on the training programme as hill repeats?" So basically if someone lives in a hilly suburb do they still need to do hill training?
What are you training for?
Click on any of the images below to download your training program now
Brad Brown: Welcome to Ask Coach Parry once again. Thabogo got a question in today. The question reads as follows: "I am currently training for Two Oceans and the Comrades Marathon and I am following your programme for a bronze medal.
I have run five of each. I have already qualified sub 4'20 in your March programme. I live in a hilly suburb.
What route must I choose during training with regards to hills or do I still need to do a hill set on the training programme as hill repeats?" So basically if someone lives in a hilly suburb do they still need to do hill training?
Lindsey: No, it is not really necessary. If you are training for a really quick time, something perhaps like a silver or quicker, then I would probably still keep some form of hill sessions in because it is a fairly safer way of doing speed work than actually getting out on the track.
But at a 4.20 qualifier - which means you are looking at a reasonably comfortable sub 11 hour Comrades Marathon. If you have got enough hills locally, and when you do your long runs you can also get in a couple of longer climbs, then it is not really necessary to - definitely not necessary to do hill training.
What should I be doing?
What you do want to do though is at least once or twice a week you need to try and find routes that don't have hill. Because if you just consistently run hills every single day, you do expose yourself to achilles, calf and potential glute issues.
Especially with the camber on our roads. So try and find and easier option, or perhaps twice a week run on a treadmill or at least once a week. Just to try and give your body rest from that constant climbing every day.
Subscribe to RUN with Coach Parry
