Oftentimes when I see athletes running uphill during a race, they falter near the top and lose their form and speed. If you have a hilly race on your calendar or if your legs feel tanked every time you finish a hill session, then this workout will help.

Today’s Workout Wednesday powered by Bioastin will help develop leg speed on the flats, and teach your body to clear muscle acidity after you crest the hills so you can keep going strong while everyone else is slowing down.

If you give this workout a try, let me know how it went. Get in touch with me on Facebook or Twitter.

Dave

Warm Up:

10’ to the base of your hill. I like to find hills anywhere from a 3% to 7 % gradient for this workout, but not greater. If you’re using a treadmill set the incline to 5% for the hill portion.

3’ of hill climbing at a pace just above your warm up pace.

Ideally find a longer hill that will last the full 3′ running up but, if you only have access to a short hill, then do 45” up with a jog down and repeat 4x.

This is a moderate effort to stretch out your hips, low back, calves, Achilles and to fire your gluteal muscles.

Main Set:

3 total rounds of hills + flats.

Hill:

4 x 35”

Go moderately hard for the first 10 seconds of each interval, then crank up the speed and WORK HARD! This effort is well above your lactate threshold (or 10K pace) since it’s a short anaerobic interval.

On the descent jog to the bottom and immediately start the next interval.

Flat:

Next, you’ll begin a flat section interval set with 20” of very fast legs with another hard effort followed by a 40” jog.

Repeat 5x.

Rest Interval (RI) 2’ after the 5th flat interval 

Hill:

4 x 30”

RI jog down + 30”

Flat:

Repeat the set on the flats (described above) but not quite as fast.

20” moderately fast and 20” recovery.

Repeat 4x.

Hill:

4 x 30” with 45” RI

Flat:

Hold 5’ on the flats with quick legs at 5% slower than 10k pace.

Cool down for 10’

Length of session: 65’

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