On The Importance of Hills

Many moons ago, on a night similar to this one, I couldn't sleep at all. No, not because the hated Colts had just won the Super Bowl, but because I was sick with this weird skin rash.

It's a gross story. Skip way ahead if you're easily grossed out. My house-mates and I had taken in this stray cat. We named him Big Mac, cause he liked Big Macs, and it was the summer of McGuire and Sosa. Anyways, the cat slept on my bed, and I contracted scabies from it! (Yes you can contract it from sheets and stuff, get your mind out of the gutter!) I couldn't get any sleep at all by the time the mite manifested itself later in the fall. (The cat had run away by his time.) I was up all night, every night, itching and scratching. Some nights I would fall asleep, but wake up with open wounds I had carved into myself. It was pretty disgusting, my girlfriend at the time was on my case constantly to go see the doctor, but I was in college, who could pay for a doctor?

Anyways, where does this all lead, other than to constant ridicule from all three people that read this blog? Well, it leads to the story of the one hill practice I missed in my entire college ski career. And the work-out that inspired me to create Spenst Hill for the distance runners at C.H.S.

Every Tuesday, in the fall, the ski team at UNH would jog over to Beech Hill. It was a 15 minute jog to get there, but about a 30 minute jog home. (It wasn't an easy work-out, I tell ya!) The hill was unpaved, with a rocky jeep road that led up to a water tower. There were three paths to get to the top, we usually concentrated on the south path. Once there, our coach would put us through the most grueling workouts I could ever imagine. Long 10 minute intervals of constant bounding, short bursts of power hops, endless repetitions of skate bounding until you had the technique perfect. It was a Tuesday tradition, from the 30 minute sit-up routines at the top to slapping the gate at the bottom before you started your next sprint up the hill. I actually loved Beech Hill, it was a test of fitness, to see if you could hang with the big boys, to see how you were progressing. It was "ski-specific", which made sense to me. I liked work-outs that made sense. Still do.

So, during the fall of my "outbreak", I show up at practice having not had more than a few hours of sleep a night in about a week. The weekend's training sessions were rained out, but that extra rest didn't help me at all. I looked like I was a ghost. I don't recall if my coach said anything before we began the jog over, but the next thing I really remember is lying in a heap at the bottom of the hill after just one interval. I guess the lack of sleep, the constant turmoil of scratching & itching, and the stress of having some weird disease finally got to me.

Now, in high school, if an athlete collapsed, you would have a coach down there immediately, plus a trainer, and a cell phone, etc. etc. Not that way in college, though, especially for a senior male. My coach was halfway up the hill, I didn't even think he noticed. My teammates were continuing the work-out, ignoring me, so I really had no choice but to haul my scabied ass up, and bound up the hill.

Halfway up, there was a rock where my coach always stood to offer critique, to cajole us on, to coach, essentially. When I got to the halfway rock, he pulled me aside, literally, by the arm, and said, "You're done." I had never heard that, so I kind of laughed, and said something along the lines of "Yeah, I know I look like sh*t." and tried to take off to finish the interval. "No." He still had my arm. "You're done." And he motioned for me to take a seat next to him. And with that, I didn't finish the first hill workout of my career. I was devastated, embarrassed and pissed off, all at once.

There is a silver lining to this tale, however. While sitting next to my coach, watching what he did and what the athletes did, and rally focusing on what was going on in the workout, I learned how truly important hill work-outs were. I mean, I knew they were important, but I never really knew why. I had never noticed it before, but there were so many things that went into a successful hill work-out. Everything from length of intervals, to form/technique, to recovery time. It was a complicated recipe, to say the least! It was sitting there, next to my coach, trying not to scratch my arms off, was where I fully realized that concept.

Which leads me to the real point of this post, why do hill workouts? Why do Spenst Hill? Especially when the track is flat? Three reasons: strength, form, mental toughness.

Strength: Spenst Hill is perfect for developing explosiveness in your running muscles. Explosiveness is very critical in racing, as the pace can change at any time, surges are common, and a race is often won or lost with a finishing kick. Hill work also develops your overall top speed, by allowing your muscles to work harder for longer. Getting up a hill quickly requires a high power-to-weight ratio, meaning you need to be very strong, but not very heavy. Ask Haile Gebrselassie or Lance. That is the ideal build for a successful distance runner. Light and strong.

Hills also provide the opportunity to build strength and power without a big risk of injury from over-use. Instead of having unnatural weight on your body to help stress your muscles, you have the pull of gravity.

Finally, hill work is an efficient work session. You get a lot of bang for your buck physiologically. Spenst Hill stresses your muscles in so many different ways, ways that would take much longer if you were in a gym or on the track. I know Spenst Hill seems long, but it is actually a short, efficient work-out!

Form: Form is so overlooked in distance running. "Right, left, right, left; running is easy!" I hear people say this all the time. ("Then why do you suck at it?" is my silent mental response.)

But, just like any sport, correct form is a free way to getting faster . Correct form requires no extra oxygen, no extra strength. It doesn't make you more tired, it requires no superfluous energy expenditure. Poor form is readily exposed on Spenst Hill. It is also easily corrected on Spenst Hill. If athletes can concentrate on form, even though we aren't technically "running", then those form adjustments will automatically be transferred over to the track. Solid foot plant, proper arm swing, correct ankle angle, these are just some of the "little" things can be ingrained into your brain on the hill. Then you don't have to think about them when you are racing, they just come naturally!

Mental Toughness: The unknown ingredient in a racer. The one thing that can make or break a season. Some people like to say that you either have mental toughness, or you don't, that you are born with it. Hogwash, I say. Mental toughness is something that can be developed, just like any other aspect of racing.

This is why I like Spenst Hill. On the days when it is freezing cold out, or the cold North Wind is rushing through, or when we have a record high temperature that day, we are still heading out there. Make the conditions tougher than they already are. Bring it on! Make it dusty and dirty, make it make it slippery and icy. The conditions and the work-out can;t be too tough, in my opinion. Because this is where you train your brain to succeed. You can train your brain to get you through this tough work-out, knowing that no one else is out on the hill, and that the track will never be this tough. You have to practice being tough, you have to convince your neurons that you can do anything, you can beat anyone, because you are putting in the time doing the toughest work-out around. The body will go wherever the brain takes it. Hills simply make you tough, and you can't name one good runner who doesn't do hills regularly. You just can't.

So, the three people reading my blog, on Monday afternoons, come on out to Spenst Hill, behind C.H.S. We will be there, just like we have been for four years, training hard, training smart. Just don't run us over if we are lying in a heap at the bottom of the hill!

One more thing, I finally got those scabies cleared up. My coach sent me to one of his college buddies who ended up becoming a dermatologist. He didn't charge me, but he gave me this pink cream I had to smear over my entire body every day for a week. Not fun. But, it killed the scabies, although I think the whole ordeal killed my relationship with my girlfriend too!