Running Hills

During the running 101 class the group reminded me of a mnemonic Steve Sission used for running up Hills - REST - below is my interpretation of or what I've remembered. I'm sure Steve has a lot more meaningful information.

Relax - Nobody really likes hills, and that tends to make us tense up when we get to one. The most important thing is to stay relaxed, tensing up tends can bring your shoulders up, restrict your breating and basically make the hill running harder that it needs to be

Effort - Keep the same effort. It's take more effort to keep the same pace going up hill, mind of makes sense but some of us tend to try and charge up a hill. That's fine if you're trying to break the person next to you mentally in a race but if you're trying to keep your heart rate where it was then keep the same effort ... that means your pace will be slower but don't forget that what goes up must come down ... ok sometimes you run up hill both ways but not most of the time.

Stride - Related to "Effort" (at least in my mind). Since you're going up hill your stride length will shorten, just make sure you keep the same cadence (frequency at which your feet touch the ground).

Take the top - As you're cresting over the hill it's important to make sure you open your stride back up, since it shortened on the uphill you want to be back where you were from a speed standpiont as you were before the hill so it's important to focus on taking the top of the hill.