As some of you may or may not know, I am planning on running the Orange County half-marathon this year. Since hills around the Phoenix area don’t quite have the changes in altitude to make the training well rounded, I decided to visit family and friends back home, while tackling a pretty challenging route. Those of you that are familiar with Mission Viejo, California would remember the 1984 Olympic bike route. I decided to run most of it, leaving the Los Alisos portion out. If you are familiar with the area, you will also know that La Paz Road from Marguerite to Olympiad is a bear of a hill.

When I arrived, I checked out the route and have to admit that I was very intimidated. The largest hill was also at the beginning of the route, which made the run more challenging. The following tips are some of the tips that I received while preparing for the run and how I think I did:

• Take Quick Short Strides – For most of the run, I obeyed this particular advice. It was difficult keeping the strides short while heading downhill due to the momentum. Overall, I could have done better in this category.
• Conserve Your Energy – In a long run, you do not want to use all of your energy up on the hills since you probably have plenty more distance to go. For this run, the disadvantage that I had was that the biggest hill was at the beginning. While trying not to expend all of my energy, I will admit that it was difficult.
• Use Gravity to Pull You Downhill – For this portion, I used long strides rather than short quick ones so that I could make up my pace. This actually made me spend more energy than I needed to. Quick short strides are the key regardless. The gravity will carry you down if you move your center of gravity forward without the long strides. I figured that out in the last half of the run.

Overall the run was one of the most challenging that I have ever done. When taking the first massive hill, there was some motivation along the way. I have no idea why it was there but it was kind of cool. There were little messages in chalk along the way. One read, “Does this hill ever end? Yikes!” There was also a joke and near the top it read, “Look up! There is the top!” You’re almost there.”

The trip was fun. I got to spend time with family and friends and it was special for me to run the route that I always feared riding my bike on as a kid. In summary, if you are a runner, I recommend building your base before taking on some hills like these or doing any hill training. Once you do your hill training, work some more hill workouts in on a treadmill between your base runs. If you have any additional tips on tackling hills on distance runs, feel free to leave them in the comments below.