Metronomic Hills
- A challenging session where the landscape is in control
- Ideal for including a mix of intensities
- A great session for the roads or trails
Metronomic Hills is an excellent session for hitting lots of different intensities on a run.
Equipment
You'll need a GPS watch or some means of measuring your pace for this session.
The Session
Find yourself a nice hilly route. Ideally one that's not too familiar so that there's an element of surprise.
Next, identify a pace of your choosing. It should be a pace that you know is not beyond your capability when running up a steep hill and no faster than what you could manage in a flat race lasting an hour.
Your goal is simply to run around the route and maintain the same pace regardless of the gradient.
Obviously you'll find yourself working fairly hard up going up the hills and fairly easily going down them.
Run for 20–45 minutes depending on ability and the intensity of the session.
Variations
Variable metronome
This could be useful for tougher courses (e.g. very hilly routes). Set yourself a slower and faster pace. You can use the slower pace on the more challenging sections, and the faster pace on the more forgiving sections.
Heart Rate Hills
Another great workout that's similar in approach, but completely different in execution is heart rate hills where you maintain a consistent heart rate instead of pace.
The warm-up for this session should consist of you gradually building up to your target heart rate.
This is great fun on a course that you don't know well because of the surprise element.
If the course is very challenging then permit minor deviations from the prescribed pace (e.g. a range of 15 seconds/mile either side).
Don't blindly adhere to a faster pace on very steep downhills. Doing so could be dangerous.
Also See
Read our guide to hill running.
Work out the level equivalent of a hilly run with our grade-adjusted pace calculator.