How Do I Train For A Downhill Race?

Audio Transcript

Coach Jeff: Today’s question is from John and it’s a simple question. He asks, “My half marathon gradually declines 310 feet over 13.1 miles with just a few small rises along the way. Do I need any special training for a race that is that fairly consistent and a gentle decline?”

Thanks John for the question. First of all, doing the math, it looks like the decline’s about 310 feet over 13.1 miles, and that’s an extremely gentle decline. That’s probably not something that I would worry too much about; probably you don’t need to train too specifically for that. The reason I want to take this question is because I think it opens up a broader question about how do you train for a race that is downhill?

It could be the St. George Marathon which is a significantly downhill. It could be something like the Boston Marathon which the first half of the race is mostly downhill. In those races, obviously the downhill helps you run a little bit faster, but what most runners don’t realize or at least we’re starting to realize now is that, that puts a significant stress on your quads and really makes it difficult to run the second half of the race. Your legs get slammed in the first half and then the muscle fibers are all torn up and you’re not able to run effectively the second half.

The question is, how do we train for that? How do we train for a race like St. George or a race like Boston where a big portion of race is downhill? There’s three options. You can use all three, you can use a combination of the three, but the three are strength work, utilizing a treadmill, and using point to point courses and workouts depending on what you have available to you.

The first is going to be strength work and I think this is probably one of the more important ones, but there’s a couple of different types of strength exercises that you can do. Basically, what we’re focusing on in these strength types of workout is squad strength. We’re trying to improve your quads strength, get your quads used to dealing with the added difficulty or the other muscle fiber tears that they’re going to get when running the race.

The first one is Wall Sits and that’s just when you’re going to basically put your back up against the wall and you’re going to start to crouch down so that your legs are about parallel and you’re just going to lean up against the wall. You’re going to try to hold this position, basely seated with your back against the wall for as long as you can, anywhere up to three to five minutes if you can. For most beginner runners, probably why don’t you start with 15 to 30 seconds, maybe try to do a total of three to five minutes. Perform a Wall Sit for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds and repeat for five minutes. If it’s only 15 seconds and then rest as much as you can, et cetera, but basically try to work up to five minutes and try to get to sit at that wall for five minutes. However, you need to space that out.

The second thing is, what we call step-downs. You’re basically just going to take a small box. You don’t want to do a really big box, but just maybe a small step. Sometimes gyms have those boxes that they use for Pilates. Probably no more than six to twelve inches or about a foot maybe being the most. Then all you’re going to do is, you’re going to be standing on top of it and then you’re going to step down on a lunge position. You’re basically going to be doing a lunge from an elevated position, down onto the floor.

You can use weights. What I would suggest is, do ten to twelve with each leg, do three sets, and then if that feels comfortable or once that starts to feel comfortable or work your way up to that, then you can start adding weights and then hold ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five pound dumbbells in your arms and again perform ten to twelve repetitions. Then the final exercise that you can do, and this is the most advanced, so I really recommend it only for runners who are pretty advanced in the weight room. I would also suggest that, if you go to the weight room for this, try to catch a personal trainer and ask for help. Tell them that you’d like to do front squats.

Obviously, you can search on YouTube videos on proper form, but you want to make sure that you get the form right on these. You want to be pretty advanced, but basically perform front squats. What you’ll be doing is, it’s a regular squat except that you’re holding the bar in front of you. Instead of putting it on your back, you’re holding it in front of you. I won’t go into the details about how to accomplish that since without visual, it’s obviously a little bit difficult, but those can be great ones. I would say the front squats, perform anywhere from six to ten repetitions, working up to the heaviest weight that you can perform for six to ten repetitions. Those you can do for anywhere from two to three sets, six to ten repetitions.

For the strength work, you want to perform the strength work after any of your runs and preferably after your work out days, because with the strength work it’s going to really take a toll on your quads and so you want to make sure that you’re recovering. You don’t want to do a workout day, for example tempo run or a speed workout on a Tuesday and then on Wednesday, which should be a recovery day, do your strength work because then obviously your legs are not getting recovered there, you’re blasting them again by doing the strength work.

Ideally it would be something along the lines of you work out in the morning, maybe tempo run, and then either directly after your workout or maybe later in the day when you get home, perform the strength workout. Again, it’s only three exercises, so it’s not going to take you a long time. Obviously for some of these you do have to head to the gym, so that may take a little bit more time, but definitely worth it.

The second method that you’re going to want to use, and this is probably the most available to most people is, make a treadmill go downhill. Basically you want to practice running downhill as much as possible. What I recommend to people from the general perspective is, there are some treadmills that are actually go downhill. There’s a couple brands that offer that, so if your home treadmill offers that or check with the gyms to see if your treadmill offers that ability to go downhill and then what you can do is perform your easy runs. Maybe starting out once or twice a week, moving up to maybe two to three times a week, running slight downhill maybe 1, 2% at most a downhill grade for your easy runs. This is just going to condition your legs to run downhill, to deal with the quad pounding, that kind of thing.

Again, start with one day a week, maybe for two or three weeks, let your legs adapt and then move to two days a week, two or three weeks, let your legs adapt. I probably won’t do more than three days a week doing downhill. Two, sometimes three would probably be my max and I would probably cut out downhill running anywhere from three to four weeks before your race, because at that point, the training is pretty much in the bag and you want to let your legs rest. You want to make sure that you’re not approaching race day with a lot of fatigue in your quads and in your legs.

If you don’t have a treadmill that goes downhill, if it’s your own treadmill, you can always put it up on cinder blocks. Basically, just put cinder blocks or any type of very stable object behind your treadmill. Prop it up, prop up the back on cinder blocks, bricks, wood, whatever it may be, but a very solid, stable surface. Make sure you test it, so that way it’s not going to fall half way through your run. A lot of gyms won’t let you do this, but you can always ask. Maybe if you’re good friends with the front desk or somebody that works at the gym, they may let you put something under the treadmill or at the back of the treadmill that’s easily removable so you can do the downhill runs.

The third option is similar to the treadmill, but you can do some of your workouts on point to point courses and maybe have a family member or somebody help drive you back. Obviously it requires somebody else, so it’s a little bit more logistically difficult. You need to have an actual downhill to run on, but basically, for example, if you had something like three, four, five times a mile with certain amount of rest, what you can do is, do the mile repeat and do it point to point. Start at the top of the hill and just go for a mile straight down, then get back in the car, have somebody drive you back up.

Again, obviously you need somebody there to help you. It’s a little bit logistically difficult, but it’s something that you can potentially do to help you out there. Those are three ways that you can incorporate some training or some ideas into your training that can help you train for a downhill race and this strength work and the treadmill are probably going to be your easiest. I would definitely go ahead and start with those.

I hope you enjoyed the answer to that question. I hope it helps you if you’re training for Boston this year or any other downhill race and gives you some great ideas. Again, if you do have your own question, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and you can click the record button to send your question over. If you haven’t already, consider heading over to iTunes or your favorite podcast directory, subscribing or leaving a review, it would really help us out a lot and help us reach more runners just like you. Thanks so much guys. I hope you have a great run today.