Brent Demerest, FL 2012,
photo by PhotoRun.net
Hill workouts are an important part of your summer and fall training. Some athletes use hill work instead of track work. Lasse Viren, the 1972 and 1976 double gold medalist at 5,000m and 10,000m, would do hill repeats instead of track work most of the year.
This workout is pretty simple, warm up, run the hill repeats strongly, pumping your arms, shortening your stride and jog easy down, and repeat. This workout will get progressively harder later in the season.
Thursday: Warmup, 1 mile, hill repeat, 2 repeats, 200 yards, uphill, 200 yards, jog downhill, 1 mile easy, cooldown.
The idea with this workout is to get used to running uphill efficiently. If you want to do something afterwards, lengthen your cooldown.