Running up that hill…

Runners and hills…
I learned early on never to trust a race description that read fast and flat when I ran a 5K with the first mile being straight up hill.  My friend was the race director who, when I challenged him, replied, "that is what we are supposed to say so that people sign up."  Thanks, Gary!  In their golden rules of running, Runners World's points out that you never gain as much time running downhill as you lose running uphill, see rule 14.
 www.runnersworld.com/training/a20804647/the-25-golden-rules-of-running-0/
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These rules came to light a few weeks ago when someone shared a post about a woman who cheated on the Honolulu marathon by cutting the course.  I don’t want to dwell on the negative, so I won’t link the story, but I knew her times were off because of how long it took her to run a portion of the race.  For 5 years I lived around mile 16 of the course where there is a big hill, probably running that portion about 1000 times, although I never ran the marathon.   My daily runs would start at the house most days, meaning I had no choice but to do hill training.  From experience, that is a tough section of the course that is bound to slow people down, not speed them up!
 
Why does running up hill slow us down?  Because it takes more energy to move your body up the hill, against gravity, compared to running on flat ground where you do not have to overcome the additional forces of gravity.  In order to run the same speed on a hill as flat ground, you need more energy which means more oxygen and more blood flow to working muscles.  Speed is sacrificed as the body is working harder to maintain its level of homeostasis (physiological balance).  For someone doing heart rate training, it is not unusually to be forced to walk the hill in order to keep the heart rate in the appropriate zone as the heart rate increases in an effort to keep up with the work required. In some cases, the cost of the energy needed to climb the big hill cannot be overcome later in races forcing us to slow down.  Running hills, especially in a race, is a balancing act between what you can do now and what you need to do later.  
 
As for the downhill, the pull of gravity on the downhill isn’t enough to “speed” us up by giving more energy, especially for people who tend to lean back into the hill to prevent gravity from pulling them too far down too quickly (falling… because some of us like the test the laws of gravity and friction).  
 
How do we overcome the challenge of the hill?  The same way we improve in all of our running… perfect practice makes perfect. In order to get better at hills, your body needs to learn to adapt to the physiological stresses of running the hill. That is why a training plan will have hill workouts included.  Running hills is the only way to teach the body how to respond to running hills. The body learns to adapt to the extra workload.  The heart begins to change to pump more blood with each beat. The lungs and breathing muscles learn to take in more air with each breath and exhale completely.  The muscles get stronger, gaining muscle fibers (cells) and more blood vessels to allow for more efficient work. There are so many adaptations and changes going on at levels that we cannot even see. What we do know is that eventually it gets easier, the times get faster, the breathing less labored, the soreness less after the run.  With an effective hill training program once race day comes around it no longer matters if the course is really fast and flat.