Down Hill Running
A situation with much gravity.
I got asked about downhill running. This is probably because I’m always warning people to practice downhill running for Boston. I’ll try to give you some more content and less chatter. Although, chatter can be amusing it’s hard to apply.
The biggest key to running downhill is to learn how to not fight gravity. If you can figure out how to relax and take advantage of gravity you can take up to a minute off your pace per mile without significantly more effort. It is not your normal pace and mechanics down the hill. It’s a different skill, a related cousin of your normal good form.
Some folks are blessed with being to run down hill well. They have an intuitive feel for downhills that lets them take advantage of gravity to gain a race advantage. While you don’t have to learn how to race downhill, you should at least get as competent at it as possible to keep those downhill sections from becoming a liability.
It’s very similar to up hills. Most people will try to avoid them or put their heads down and trudge up them. Once you cone to the realization that hills are unavoidable you begin to see that hills are an opportunity to learn something new to potentially gain a weapon for your race arsenal.
I’m not very good at uphill running. I tend to focus my uphill training on being able to tactically withstand the hills without having to give up too much pace. That being said, I’m pretty good at downhill racing. I’m a big guy with fairly long legs and I learned early in my cross country days that I could invoke the pine-box derby method of gravity acceleration as a tactical tool to foil my competitors.
What’s a specific way for you to train for downhill racing? There are some specific situations where I do extra focus on downhill running. When I’m training for Boston I try to work in some downhill tempo intervals a couple weeks before the race. What do these look like?
One basic form of this is to find a hill that is about ½ a mile long and gains or drops around 200 feet from one end to the other. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The hill can have rolling ups and downs in it but it shouldn’t be too steep or too shallow.
Too steep is when you can no longer maintain your normal race form and mechanics. Too steep is when you struggle to maintain balance running down the hill.
It should be enough of a hill that you have to work to get up it but not so much that it’s going to kill you. ½ mile is a long way and this is supposed to be for hill acclimation not HR or strength per se. If you held me to a number I’d say 7% grade.
This is the same hill, BTW that I’d recommend you doing uphill tempo work on for strength.
*Caution: Uphill and downhill tempo workouts are very hard on the body. They put over-stress on your connective tissue – so ease into it and listen to your body. Don’t be an idiot – this is an easy way to injure yourself.
Once you’ve found and measured you hill you are ready for your downhill tempo intervals.
Warm up for 10 minutes. Start at the top. Run at a tempo pace down the hill. Walk or jog back up. Repeat.
The objective is to find a quick, light pace that is easy to maintain and does not fatigue your legs.
The purpose of this workout is not effort. It is to become acclimated to the mechanics and forces involved with running down hill. You’ll find that gravity, which is your weight, actually your mass, accelerates you down the hill and causes more force on each foot-fall.
Many runners, especially big guys like me, and heel strikers, tend to brake on the down hills. Meaning that they dig in their heels and fight the pull of the hill. This is wrong. This increases the amount of jarring and the amount of work you have to do. Instead of recovering or coasting on the downhills, if you fight them they actually become more work and add to your fatigue and injury risk.
This is what happens at Boston. People fatigue their quads without even knowing it. Then when they go to use them in the hills after mile 18, there is nothing left.
They key to running down hill is to learn how to run lightly. You will have go faster because the gravity is accelerating you. Once you stop fighting the gravity you will accelerate and you’ll have to keep up. The only way you are going to be able to keep up is with a faster cadence and a longer stride.
The natural running gurus will advise you to just increase your turnover and cadence to keep up. I have found this to be hard to do and to put a lot of stress on my quads. I prefer to do both; increase my cadence and stretch out my stride length. You have to find the balance that is right for you. You’ll know you are there when it feels like you are in freefall but your legs are keeping up and it feels effortless.
It takes practice – that’s why you do the downhill interval sessions. A variation on this workout I do is what I call an “up and over”. In this case I have a hill that is two sided. The road goes up one side and down the other. I do alternating tempo up and/or down – with a short recovery at the top, maybe 50 feet. It’s a good simulation of the reality of a hilly race course.
Back to form. Once you’ve got that turnover-stride length thing figured out you can work on the other mechanics. You want to maintain good running posture. Don’t lean forward and definitely don’t lean backwards. You may not be able to land on your forefoot with the slope of the hill, but at least try to hit the mid-foot. The key is not to brake at all and not to have any slapping or thudding. Your want light feet, hot feet, fast feet.
When I find this zone in a race it is like a glorious freefall. I’m literally in a controlled fall, flying.
Other than that you just maintain usual good form. Upright, tall, hips forward, hands high and loose. One of the things you may want to do is to hold your hands a little bit more extended out to the sides for balance. This isn’t as important on the road but becomes necessary on the trails to keep from taking a tumble.
That’s it. Once you have practiced it for awhile you will find that you develop this downhill pace and form. It becomes a great competitive weapon in your racing repertoire. I love downhills. Because of my relative height and weight I can really make up ground on the short, small runners by just letting go in a controlled descent. It’s like having bigger wheels. It can be a real confidence booster.
Go out and practice your downhill running because someday you may need it!