With the Around the Bay Road Race days away runners are well aware that “THE” hill, as in Valley Inn Rd has returned. I spent Tuesday morning with the team from CH Morning Live chatting the race and sharing tips to rock the hill. Watch it here and read my 4 tips to conquer the hill below.
Four tips to dominate your next hill workout.
1. Keep your chest up and open. The most common advice you might have received is to “lean into the hill”. Unfortunately, this causes many runners to hunch at the waist to lean forward. This constricts your airway and makes it harder to breathe deeply. You do need to lean forward, but make sure you lean at the hips, not the waist.
2. Keep your head and eyes up. Dropping your head leads to a slouch in your form and restricts how much oxygen you can take in. So instead, drive your arms straight forward and back using them like pistons. Keep your elbows bent in a 90-degree angle, and swing them straight back and forth, and not across your body.
3. Drive your knees up off the hill and not into the hill – think of this as your knee drive. Work on landing on the ball of your foot to spring up the hill.
4. Bend your ankle. Think of yourself exploding off your ankle and using that last bit of power to propel you up the hill with minimal energy expenditure. Focusing on plantar flexion can save you a lot of energy and really help you get up the hill faster and with less energy.
What are some tips and tricks you use to power up a hill?
catchingheather.com 
Ooohh good tips! I also recommend trying to keep light on your feet with quick turnover and minimal ground contact time. It’s kind of an offshoot of point #3 on your list, popping off the balls of your feet and driving your knees up. If you let your feet sink and load up your quads too much for the push off, your poor legs will catch fire in no time. I try to think like I’m running up glass stairs or wobbly posts that will fall out from under me if I don’t step lightly and quickly.
I do keep my gaze toward the top or crest of the hill, and think of myself as ‘eating the hill’… I consume it so that more and more of it is gone.
Trying to ‘skip’ up the hill also gives me the knee motion and ankle springing you mention too.