Quick Answer: Run hills by effort, not by pace. Shorten your stride and keep cadence roughly the same, lean slightly from the ankles rather than the waist, drive your arms more actively, keep your gaze about 10 metres ahead, and accept that on steep grades a strong walk is often faster and cheaper than a slow run.

Everyone knows hills are hard. Fewer people know that most of the difficulty is self-inflicted — the result of trying to hold flat-ground pace on a gradient, which costs energy you will not get back for kilometres.

Here are the seven adjustments that make the biggest difference, in the order they matter.

1. Run by effort, not by pace

This is the whole game and the rest is detail.

The energetic cost of running rises sharply with gradient — roughly 3 to 4 percent per 1 percent of incline. On a 6 percent hill, holding your flat pace costs about a fifth more energy than flat running at that speed, and your body pays for it with anaerobic contribution you will be repaying for the next ten minutes.

The correct behaviour is to let pace fall and keep effort constant. If you run by heart rate, note that it lags 30 to 60 seconds behind the change in workload, so on shorter hills you will crest the top before the number catches up. Use breathing as the real-time gauge: if you cannot get three or four words out, you are running the hill too hard.

Practically: expect to lose 30 to 60 seconds per kilometre on a moderate climb and to get most of it back on the descent. That is a successful hill, not a failed one.

2. Shorten your stride, hold your cadence

The instinct on a hill is to reach further up the slope. It is the wrong instinct.

A longer stride uphill means landing further ahead of your centre of mass, which increases braking force at exactly the moment you have the least momentum to spare. It also demands more from the hip and hamstring at a poor mechanical angle.

Instead, shorten the stride and keep cadence within a few steps of your flat-ground figure — for most runners that is somewhere in the 165 to 180 steps-per-minute range. Higher turnover with a shorter reach keeps each footfall underneath you, reduces braking, and spreads the work across more, smaller efforts.

An easy check: count right-foot strikes for 30 seconds on the flat, then on the climb. If the hill number is more than five or six lower, you are reaching. Deliberately taking smaller steps usually fixes it within a few strides.

3. Lean from the ankles, not the waist

Almost everyone bends forward at the hips on a climb, and it is the most common technical fault in hill running.

Bending at the waist compresses the diaphragm, restricting breathing precisely when oxygen demand is highest. It also shifts your centre of mass forward of your hips, which shortens the glutes’ effective range and hands the work to the quads and calves — the muscles that fatigue fastest.

The correct position is a small whole-body lean from the ankles, keeping a straight line from ankle through hip to shoulder, with the chest open. It feels almost upright, which is why it feels wrong at first.

A useful cue: imagine a light pull from the top of your sternum up the hill, rather than pushing your face toward the slope. Another: run a hill focusing only on keeping your hips forward and tall, and notice how much easier breathing becomes.

4. Use your arms deliberately

Arms contribute more on a climb than anywhere else in running, and most runners let them go passive at exactly the wrong moment.

Uphill, drive the elbows back rather than swinging the hands forward. The backward drive is what generates the counter-rotation that helps the opposite leg come through, and on steep sections it produces a noticeable amount of forward propulsion.

Keep the elbows at roughly 90 degrees, hands relaxed, and let the arm swing amplitude increase slightly relative to flat running. On the steepest sections, a more vigorous arm drive is often what keeps cadence from collapsing.

What to avoid: hands crossing the midline of the body, shoulders creeping toward the ears, and clenched fists. All three add tension without adding output, and shoulder tension in particular restricts breathing.

A quick reset mid-climb: drop the shoulders once, shake the hands out for two strides, then resume. It costs nothing and buys back some economy.

5. Look ahead, not down

Where you look determines your spine position, and your spine position determines your breathing.

Dropping the gaze to your feet flexes the neck, which encourages the upper back to round, which closes the chest. Fixing your eyes about 10 metres up the road keeps the head neutral and the airway open.

There is a psychological component too, and it is not trivial. Runners who stare at the summit of a long climb consistently report higher perceived effort than those who focus on a nearer point. Breaking a long hill into segments — to that lamp post, then that bend — is a genuine performance technique, not just a coping strategy.

On technical trail, you obviously need to see your footing, but scan ahead and commit rather than watching each step. Trail runners describe reading the ground three or four steps in advance and letting the feet follow.

6. When to walk, and how to train the descent

On steep enough gradients, walking is not a concession. It is the faster and cheaper option, and elite mountain runners do it routinely.

The crossover point varies with fitness and terrain, but somewhere around 15 to 20 percent gradient the metabolic cost of running exceeds the cost of a strong power walk for very little speed gain. Above 25 percent, walking is almost always better for anyone not competing at a high level.

A power hike is a technique in its own right: shorter steps, hands pressed on the thighs just above the knee to transfer load through the arms, upright torso, and a deliberate push through the whole foot.

The strategic point is bigger than the hill itself. Running a steep climb at 95 percent effort to save 20 seconds routinely costs two minutes over the following kilometres. In any race longer than 10 km with significant elevation, the runners who walk the steepest pitches often finish ahead of the ones who refused to.

7. Train the descent as seriously as the climb

Downhill running is where hill training injuries happen, and where most of the time is actually won or lost.

Descending involves eccentric loading — muscles lengthening under tension — which causes far more muscle damage than uphill work and produces the deep quad soreness that shows up two days later. Untrained quads on a long descent will fail, and once they do, pace collapses regardless of how strong your climbing was.

Technique: keep cadence high and steps light, land underneath yourself, and let the lean come from the ankles again. Braking with each step by reaching out in front is what wrecks the quads. A slight increase in cadence and a small forward lean actually reduces impact loading.

Build downhill exposure gradually — it is the one running stimulus where jumping in produces days of soreness. Include some deliberate downhill running weekly, and add eccentric strength work such as slow-tempo split squats and step-downs.

Putting the seven together

On your next hilly route, pick two of these to focus on rather than all seven. Most runners find effort-based pacing and the ankle lean produce the largest immediate change, with cadence and arm drive close behind.

FAQ: Hill Running Questions, Answered

How often should I include hills in training?

Once a week for most runners is plenty to build the specific strength, whether as hill repeats or as a hilly route run at easy effort. If your goal race is hilly, add a second session in the final six weeks, ideally on similar gradients.

Are hill repeats better than flat speed work?

They are different tools. Hill repeats build power and running-specific strength with lower impact and less injury risk than flat intervals, but they do not train the leg speed and turnover that flat sessions do. Most well-built plans include both, often with hills earlier in a block and flat speed closer to a race.

Why does my heart rate stay high after I crest a hill?

Because heart rate lags workload and because you have accumulated an oxygen deficit that has to be repaid. Give it 60 to 90 seconds of easy running over the top before judging anything. Deliberately easing for that period — rather than immediately accelerating on the flat — is one of the most reliable ways to run a hilly route faster overall.

TL;DR:

• Run hills by effort and let pace drop 30 to 60 seconds per kilometre; it comes back on the descent.
• Shorten stride, keep cadence within a few steps of flat, and lean from the ankles rather than the waist.
• Drive the elbows back, keep your gaze 10 metres ahead, and reset your shoulders mid-climb.
• Above roughly 15 to 20 percent gradient, a strong power hike beats a slow run.
• Train descents deliberately — that is where the injuries and the lost time both live.

Hills stop being a wall and start being a section of the route the moment you stop trying to run them at flat pace.