Downhill Running

 

Fall gracefully. That’s about it really, but hard to achieve when you fear you might fall flat on your face at any moment. Firstly, before you do any significant amounts of downhill running, you need to prepare your body for running downhill.

Downhills are often preceded by uphills, so first thing to remember is to leave something in the tank for what’s coming after the uphill part of your run. If you get to the top of the hill so spent you can hardly stand up, your downhill form will be somewhat less than perfect, and you won’t be able to reap the benefits to be gained from running downhill well. See our article for more on uphill running technique.

 

And now for the downhills.

Gently lean your body into the hill. Relax and it’ll gently pull you down. Don’t lean back and try to brake yourself. Fight it and you’ll end up with sore quads and frustration when you see people powering past you on the downhill-those very same people you just overtook on the uphill!

It’s tempting to take huge leaps when running downhill, but do try not to overstride. Keep your feet low to the ground, and stay light on your feet. Your leg turnover should pick up. Keep your steps quick. Your stride will naturally lengthen a little as the ground drops away beneath you, so to keep your steps quick, you may have to try to shorten your strides up a little. Each footstrike should be very light and very short. With shorter, more frequent steps you absorb less shock per stride.

Lean forward into the hill. The lean should come from the ankles, not the hips. Shoulders should be slightly in front of you. Land with your foot just a little bit behind your hips, not directly underneath you.

 

Practice makes perfect.

The more you practice running down hill, the more confident you will get, the more relaxed you will get, the better you will get at it, the more confident you will get……Take every opportunity to focus on your downhill form when you are out running, and include some specific downhill sessions each week. Start out with a short gradual slope perform 30 second downhill intervals at race pace. Gradually build up the length of your intervals and your speed down the hill, to about 20 secs faster than your goal race pace.

The most important aspect, as with any training plan, is to avoid overdoing it. It’s normal to be sore as you adapt to downhill training, but too much downhill running can be detrimental, leaving you overly fatigued and prone to injury.

Lastly, don’t expect to get the hang of downhill running on your first attempt. Like most thing, it’ll take a bit of practice before you have that light bulb moment. When you get it right, you’ll know.

 

View this video for more on hill running.

Watch the Video

Running Downhill: Prepare Yourself

 

Downhill running can be very taxing on the body due to the increased impact, but a few key strategies will reduce the impact forces on your knees and the rest of your body, and also help you to lose less energy whilst increasing your overall speed and efficiency. Leg and core strength is important for all running, but particularly before embarking on a training period which emphasises downhill running. The quadriceps muscles, or quads, the muscles at the front of your thigh, can take quite a hammering running downhill. You need to work on them, as well as the tendons and ligaments in ankles, knees, hips and lower back.

 

Prepare your body for downhill running.

As with any new exercise regime, start out slowly, with one set of 12-15 repetitions per exercise, and progress over to 2-3 sets of 12-15 repetitions over a few weeks.

Lunges. Strengthen quads, hamstrings and hips. Stationary lunges are safer for your knees, especially if you are just starting out. As you get stronger, hold hand weights whilst you are doing them, or progress to alternating legs or walking lunges. If you already have knee or balance issues, you might be better to give the walking lunges a miss.

Stationary lunge

Start with feet hips’ width apart. Take a step forward with one leg. This is your stating position. Bend the front knee to 90 degrees, or until your knee just taps the floor. You need to keep your knee in good alignment, making sure the knee is over the ankle, not beyond the toes. Aim to keep your knee in line with your second toe, not your big toe. If you are too unstable to begin with, place a chair beside you to use for balance. Try not to lean on the chair though.  Its best to perform this one in front of a mirror so you can check your knee out. Pause at the bottom, and push through your front heel to return to starting position.

 

Planks

Great for strengthening core. Start by doing 3 times sets to exhaustion, and increase the length of time you hold the plank as you get stronger.

Plank

Lie face down with your forearms on the floor. Push up so your elbows are under your shoulders and arms bent at 90 degrees. Be sure your elbows are under your shoulders, or even slightly under your body, to prevent shoulder injury.   Hold your body in a straight line from your head to your feet.

An easier version of the plank is to perform it on your knees. Just bend your knees and rest on them for support rather than your toes. Your body is then held in a straight line from your head to your knees. It’s called a plank, because your body should be like  plank of wood, not rubbery through the middle.

Keep your head in line with your body. Focus on squeezing your buttocks, draw in your navel to your spine, push up through your shoulders and breathe.

 

Step ups

These can be done on stairs or benches. Great for strengthening your quads, and also for activating your buttock muscles.

Step ups

Stand facing the bench, feet hips’ width apart. Step up on the bench with your left foot, and push off with your right foot. Squeeze the bum muscles in your left side as you do so.  While standing on the bench on your left foot, raise the right knee up to the height of your waist and pause. Keeping your posture tall, step down with the right foot. Perform the entire set on one leg and repeat on the other.

To make it more challenging, keep your right foot off the floor. Lower it close to the level of the floor and raise back up. Even harder, add a hop at the top of the bench (definitely not for beginners)

Keep your torso tall and avoid leaning to one side. Perform without weights to start off with, and on a low bench. If you find you are bending over rather than standing tall, or are pushing off with your hands on your thighs to help you up, drop down to a lower bench height. As with any exercise performed on one leg, these are great for developing balance and strengthening muscles in your lower leg and foot.

When your legs are strong enough you can includes some hopping and bounding drills so your muscles get used to the eccentric contractions which occur when running down hill. You’ll need a good couple of months of consistent leg strength training before any kind of plyometric work. When you do start plyometrics you MUST be very sure to ease into it gently, otherwise you’ll find yourself very sore and stiff, and possibly injured.

 

Go to our article on downhill running technique.

Six Secrets to a Successful Fun Run

 

Secret #1: Consistency

Probably the most important thing with any training program is being consistent. If you’re not consistent with your training, and you are continually starting a program, then missing sessions, your body won’t be able to build on previous training to get fitter and stronger. You will be continually having to go back to the beginning and start again. If you miss a few sessions of your program and don’t drop your training down a bit when you start again, you risk injury as a result of stepping up your program too quickly. The single biggest roadblock to success I see with my clients is a lack of consistency in training.

The good news is, it’s quite easy to be consistent if you plan your training. You just need to be well organised.

Diarise your training time now. Take a pen out and write it in on your calendar, mark it in your electronic diary, however you do it, block your training time out now, for at least the next 6 weeks.  Make sure everyone knows that is your time.  Organise someone else to have your kids, dogs, cat, fish for that time. Don’t let anything get in the way of your training. Make sure you get out rain, hail or shine (but not electrical storms)! Tell your boss you can’t work back as you have an appointment, if working back is going to eat into your training time. If you had a doctor’s appointment you wouldn’t cancel it, so why cancel an appointment you have with the most important person in your life, YOU?

You’ll need to set aside time for 2-5 training sessions a week, of between 30 and 80 minutes (depending on the distance you are running and the level of training you want to do).

 

Secret # 2: Set Yourself  a Goal

Write your goal down. Set aside some time to think about what your goal is. Is it  to complete a fun run without stopping, or to run most of the way, or to raise a certain amount of money for charity, or to beat a previous best time, or to win the event outright? Whatever your motivation, write it down, say it out loud, put it out there. Be realistic about your goal. It’s great to aim high, but there’s not much point in aiming so high that you never quite hit your goals. Anyone who has an HR department in their workplace will probably have sat through lots of goal setting sessions, but it’s worthwhile reminding you here about setting SMART goals.

Your goals should be Specific – what are you going to do, how are you going to do it? A general goal would be “ to improve my running”. A specific goal would be “to improve my 5km run time by 15 seconds by the end of this training period” or by a specific date.

Your goals should be Measurable.  Create a goal with measurable progress so you can see the change occur. eg I will beat my previous best time, or better still and more specific, I’ll beat my previous best time by 30 seconds” or “I’m going to run every step of the way”

Your goals should be Achievable and Attainable.  For a goal to be attainable, achieving that goal needs to be important to you. If you don’t really mind what time you complete a 10km run in, then setting a goal of 60 minutes for 10km is not really going to motivate you to train to achieve that time. If what’s really important to you is losing a couple of kgs, and you’ve chosen running as a way of helping you to lose those kgs, then set yourself a weight related goal, rather than a goal centred on running. If however you are driven by beating your husband in a 10km race, set that as your goal. It will be far more attainable if tie your goal to what’s really important to you.

Your goals should be Realistic. This does not mean “easy”, it means “doable”. The goal needs to be realistic for you and where you are at the moment. I would be driven by the thought of beating my husband in a fun run, very driven in fact, but I also know that this is totally unrealistic as there is no way I will even come close to beating him unless he breaks both his legs. So setting myself a goal of beating my husband in our next 10km fun run is setting myself up for failure from the start, and I know. Instead of motivating me, the goal would totally demotivate me. I’d be better off setting myself the goal of improving on my personal best time by a greater percentage than he improves on his. That would definitely give me some bragging rights!

Your goals should be Timely.  With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. Setting a clear time frame gives you a target to work towards.

 

Secret # 3: Be prepared to run slowly

This is particularly relevant if you are just getting back into running after a log break, or you have never really run much before. It’s important for a number of reasons. Like any sport, if you start out too hard to soon, you increase your risk of injury. Running puts quite a bit of stress on your body. The faster you run, the greater impact on your body.

Running slowly also allows you to run more, both in a single bout of training and cumulatively across your training program. The greater volume of training can be more beneficial for aerobic adaptations such as increased capilliarisation and mitochondrial density.

 

Secret # 4: Be prepared to run fast

You need to fresh enough after your long runs to be able to put in a good effort in interval training sessions to reap maximum benefit. You won’t be fresh from your long runs if you run them too fast, so being prepared to run fast (in some sessions) means you need to run slowly in other sesions. In a nutshell, running intervals will get you fit quick. Regular interval training will enable you to run faster for longer. It helps you to practice running faster without killing yourself, as you have recovery breaks, (or intervals) between each work bout. It can be tough runnning intervals on your own, so come along for a free trial at one of our interval running training groups, and see how running with a group can up the intensity.

 

Secret # 5: Increase your distance gradually

The rule of thumb for increasing your mileage is to keep it under a 10% increase each week. This applies to your total mileage, not just the length of your long run. This will help to minimise the risk of overuse injuries, or over training. Over training simply means you’ve trained too much and you are not giving your body enough time to recover. The training effect actually takes place when you are resting, not when you are training, so remember to include one week every 3-5 weeks where you ease off on your mileage.

 

Secret # 6: Plan your training.

Most campaigns come unstuck due to lack of planning. You rarely get the best out of yourself if you don’t have a training plan, guiding you towards your goal. Once you’ve set yourself a goal, write yourself a training plan and stick to it. The length of your training plan will depend on your goal. If you’re training for something even just 4 weeks away, a plan will help you get the most of the training time you have left. If If you need help with a training plan, Hooked on Health offers on-line training programs for all fun run race distances, from 4km to Marathons and beyond.

 

Find out more about our online distance running training programs.

Kids Running: HOH Kids Feature in School Cross Country

 

The first term of Hooked on Health’s kids’ running training group, HOH Athletics, has been a great success. With 16 regulars training at Melwood Oval on Tuesday afternoons, there was always plenty of action. Ranging in age from 7 to 12, the kids all benefitted from the great coaching and motivation provided by Kids Athletics Coach Richard Sarkies.

 

The focus for term I was cross country training, as most schools held their cross countries at the end of last term, or will hold them early this term. The representative season starts with the local primary school sports association zone carnival on 11th May at Lionel Watts Reserve.

 

All HOH Athletics kids achieved outstanding results in the cross countries. The results were:

 

Will Barry: 4th, U/8, St Josephs, Nbeen

Jacob Wander, 12th, U/8, Wakehurst Public

Lizzy McMillen, 1st, U/8,Forestville Public

Eva Strachan, 21st, U/11,Forestville Public

Emma O’Reilly, 1st, U/10, Belrose Public

Genevieve O’Brien, 4th, U/9 OLGC

Harrison O’Brien, 5th, U/8, OLGC

Olivia Thomson, 4th, U/8, OLGC

Flynn Stapleton, 4th, U/10, Belrose Public

Jordan Casey, 4th, U/8, Wakehurst Public

Cameron Lesurf, 8th, U/8 and U9, Mimosa Public (3rd U8 home)

Abbey McMillen, 1st, U/11,Forestville Public

Will Keir, 1st, U/13, Killarney High

Wilson Sarkies, 3rd, U/8 and U9, Mimosa Public (1st U8 home)

Tom Irwin, 2nd, U/10, Mimosa Public

 

In term two we will initially be focusing on the cross country and longer distances, adding in the shorter distances as the term progresses towards the school Athletics Carnivals.

Registrations are now open for term II running training.

 

Friday Arvo Races As an extension to our Tuesday Athletics Training, and seeing how much kids love running races, we have  ‘FRIDAY ARVO RACES’ at Lionel Watts Reserve Frencsh Forest, on, well, Friday of course! It’s open to ALL AGES and LEVELS, and the idea is for the kids to have a few races over various distances and try to improve their OWN times. Of course they’ll all be trying to beat each other as well. It will  be a great way of getting ready for their Athletics Carnival.

 

Find more information about our kids running groups, or register for a free trial now.

 

Like to comment on these great results, or add your own kids results? Please add to the comments below.

 

Running Up Hills

 

Running up hills is hard work. Simply put, it takes more effort to run up a hill and your body needs to recruit more muscle fibres to do so, than when you’re running at a nice tempo on the flat.

So how do you make running up hill easier? Get good at it by doing a lot of it. Your body will adapt and get stronger. You don’t need to do hill repeat after hill repeat to run a lot of hills. In Sydney, we are blessed with many things, amongst them, lots of hilly terrain. It’s pretty hard to run anywhere in Sydney that doesn’t include a few good hills.

 

Follow these tips and one day, you might just find you enjoy running up hills.

 

  • Include at least a few good hills in most of your runs. Don’t always hunt out the flattest route for your long runs.
  • Embrace the hill. Change your attitude to the hill. Call it a name. Conquer it. Heartbreak hill in the City to Surf is a classic example.
  • Include hill repeats as part of your program on a semi regular basis. Run handicap hills in a group starting with the slowest to fastest. This sets everyone a challenge.
  • Break your favourite hill up into chunks. Run the whole distance first time up, then come down 60m or so, and run up 40m. Keep going till you get back to the bottom, then run one more full hill, then continue on your run.

 

Think about your form when you’re running up hills

 

  • Good arm swing, as if you are pulling yourself up a rope. If your arms keep going, so will your legs.
  • Keep your strides quick, and slightly shortened, not great big long loping strides. Liken it to adjusting the gears on a bike for uphill riding. Your legs should be “spinning” up the hill when you’re running
  • Visualise pressing your hips into the hill so that you’re not bending at the waist
  • Experiment with whether you like to look at the peak of the hill and see yourself getting closer and closer, or if you prefer to keep your eyes down and get a pleasant surprise when you look up and you’re nearly at the top! Either way, keep your head and neck in good alignment – don’t drop your chin into your chest, or tilt your head backwards
  • Knees can come a little higher to help with your stride rate
  • You’ll naturally come up onto the ball of your foot as you are running up hill. Don’t fight it. Push down on your toes to create a lift that will help propel you forward.

When you reach the top of the hill, remember you have to keep running. It’s not an opportunity to slump into yourself and shuffle along for the next 200 metres. Once you reach the top, continue to think tall, count your breathes, your strides, anything to get you back into a good rhythm quickly. You’ll be surprised how quickly you recover if you stop thinking about how ghastly it was!

 

And remember: love the hill. It’s doing you good.

 

Share your uphill running tips below.

Running Mantras

How do you get your head in the right space to keep putting one foot after the other? As “mile after relentless mile” marches on, how do you keep it up? Some days it’s easy. You welcome each KM as it approaches.  These are the days you run for. Some days, it just doesn’t click, and you need something to keep you going. That’s when running mantras can help you get your head back on the track with the rest of your body.

 

You’ll find it’s important to have different mantras to achieve different goals. If your goal is not to go out too fast in a race, then you need something which will slow you down a bit. “Slow and steady”, is not particularly creative, but can be effective. “Can I keep this up for 42 kms?” is also a good one. Or how about, “See you at about 15km”, when you are tempted to keep up with all the people who are going out too fast at the start? Those people who you just know you’ll peg back at about the 15km mark!

As things start to get a little tougher towards the end of a race, no matter what the distance, something more along the lines of “You’re tough enough to do this”,  “keep your arms moving” “you’ve trained for this, you’re ready”. Something as simple as the classic “Come On” used by Leighton Hewitt is a great exapmle of a mantra – though I suggest you lose the hand actions if you’re going to use this one.

 

Training mantras will be different to racing mantras, as will mantras designed to help you maintain technique. To help me maintain some type of form when things get tough, I repeat after me “run tall, lift, lengthen”. This helps me to keep my pelvis in good alignment as I imagine I am lifting out of my hip joint, not dropping down on one side each time I lift my foot off the ground in classic “model walk posture”. In training I think about specific goals and remind myself “you are one session closer to achieving…..”-whatever that goal might be.

 

My all time favourite mantra is “if not now when, if not you who”? It has served me well across a number of different sports. I’d say there’s a few other people who reckon it’s not bad. It’s been around since the first century BC, and is attributed to Rabbi Hillel (Hillel the Elder), recorded in a section of the Talmud.

I first heard it when listening to Mike McKay (of oarsome foursome fame) speaking to a bunch of senior managers. It struck a chord. From memory he had either the word “now” or it may have been “yes” tacked onto the back of the oarsman in front of him, and he used this to lift at crucial stages in the race (I have perhaps just made that bit up, but it was a long time ago that I heard him speak).

 

When I was rowing, I used it when I knew I had to give it everything I had, to get out through a big surf without being smashed, which generally means game over. Now I use it throughout fun runs, (and to a lesser extent training sessions) when I’m finding it tough going. It serves to remind me why I’m out there on the road.

And why am I out there on the road? Mostly because I have a competitive streak and want to post a PB, want a top 5 finish in my age category, (not very commonn these days – bring on the 50+ category) or just bloody mindedly won’t let that person up ahead in the pink shirt get too far ahead of me. Afterall, I am going to be ahead of them at the finish line.  I’m also fascinated at what the body can be put through-though I don’t know that I’ve ever really put it to the test except in childbirth – and aint that a doozy for mantras – all partners of women in labour please note “just relax” is a particularly ineffective mantra during labour.

 

Some mantras are so widely used they have become cliche, such as “run your own race” and “don’t panic” although I prefer “stay calm” to “don’t panic”. Others include “make pain your friend” and “this is what you train for”.

 

Whatever dreams you run for, a mantra can bring them that much closer to reality, Runners World offers the following mantra builder if you don’t have any of your own already.

BUILD IT, BELIEVE IT, BECOME IT

Choose one word from each section below to create a motivational, get-it-done power chant.

[mantra-multi][mantra-column width=”1/4″]

A
Run
Go
Stride
Sprint
Be

[/mantra-column] [mantra-column width=”1/4″]

B
 Strong
Fast
Quick
Light
Fierce

[/mantra-column] [mantra-column width=”1/4″]

C
Think
Feel
Embrace
Be
Hold

[/mantra-column] [mantra-column width=”1/4″]

D
Power
Speed
Brave
Bold
Courage

[/mantra-column] [/mantra-multi]

 

 

 

 

 

 

For example:

Run strong, think speed.

Be light, feel power.

Sprint fast, feel speed.

We’d love to hear some of your running mantras.

SMH Half Marathon 2010

Hooked on Health wins women’s team event

 

Hooked on Health’s fantastic run continued today with our women’s team of Michele Woods, Sam Evans, and Jane Raftesath taking out the women’s team event in the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon, by the narrowest of margins. Unfortunately, our fourth team member, Stef O’Brien had to withdraw prior to the start of the race, due to illness.

A half marathon virgin, three PB’s and a “best time for ten years post babies”. As a coach, you can’t ask for much more than that! Marc Fitton, Michele Woods and Jane Raftesath all recorded PB’s, Jane taking a massive 13 minutes off her previous best set in the same race last year, whilst Sam Evans ran her best time since giving birth to her three children, completing the run in 1hr 51 mins and 23 secs. Jane completed the 21 odd kilometres in  1hr 45 mins and 40 sec. Marc broke 1hr 50 mins for the first time (just), crossing the line at the 1 hr 49mins and 47 secs!

In her first half marathon, Michele took the pace out perhaps a little too hard and says she was feeling the fast pace by the 8km mark. Oh dear, only 13kms to go! After 1 hr 53 mins and 29 secs, Michele was very thankful to cross the finish line. Great run Michele.

New to Hooked on Health, Monique Hauber-Davidson also ran the half, finishing comfortably in 2hr 17 mins.

From a spectator’s point of view, it was a very chilly and nerve racking morning, but well worth it. Thanks to the rest of the Hooked on Health team for their good wishes and messages of congratulations.

View all SMH Half Marathon results here.