Downhill Running

Downhill sections of marathons or ultra-marathons are where you can either gain or lose a lot of time, depending on your training. While many runners consider uphill repeats to be part of their training, very few specifically target downhill running and yet running downhill is a skill which needs to be trained to improve. It places the legs under great stress and it will quickly trash your quads, leaving you with legs that might be barely capable of a shuffle. Downhill training is not just useful for a hilly course. Even if your race is flat, including downhill running in training will strengthen your legs so they don’t suffer as much damage in the later stages of a race, allowing you to maintain a good pace rather than merely managing a survival chug (my slow run) or worse still, walking (although this has its place at times in long races). I’d like to share a few thoughts and tips that I have used to good effect.  

Start slowly
Downhill running places a far greater load on the joints so it needs to be built up gradually. Start by making use of hills in your normal runs until your legs can handle the increased load without any extra post-run soreness.

Next stage
What goes up must come down, so then start specifically being aware of the downhill sections of your training. Instead of walking or jogging down a hill take a short recovery at the top and then run down. Think about running easily and taking short strides. Try and land softly and lightly with each stride rather than over striding and driving your heel into the ground. You are not trying to run fast downhill at this stage, you are just aiming to run comfortably.

Repeats
Once your legs have adapted to running comfortably downhill, you can start to increase the speed. Find a short hill that takes about 2-3 minutes to run down and run slowly uphill then run fast downhill. The pace should be faster than your normal run but not anywhere near flat out. If you are targeting a hilly race this type of downhill running training will be as important as your hill climbing skills. Develop this by doing more repeats or a longer hill, not by going faster.

Efforts
By now your legs and joints should be well adapted to running downhill so, this time treat the downhill section as the effort and uphill as the recovery. Find a hill that takes 2-4 minutes to run down. Run the downhill hard and slowly jog back uphill. Repeat 4-6 times. Running fast downhill involves a high degree of muscular co-ordination that takes time to develop. Having the confidence to just let go and fly downhill comes with practice so have patience. Crashing face first into the ground at speed is not fun!

Running up and downhill
Now you can combine both. Find a hill that takes 2-5 minutes to run up. Run hard uphill then turn around and run hard downhill. Jog slowly at the bottom for approximately 2-5 minutes and then go again. Do as many repeats as you can fit into 30-40 minutes. You might start with 20 minutes and build up to 40. This will teach your legs to run fast downhill even when your legs are tired.

Running long downhills
If you have access to a long steep downhill make use of it. Start with 10 minutes of running hard downhill and build up to 20-30 minutes. Run these at the same kind of effort you would run a half marathon.  

Terrain
Choose terrain which is as close as possible to the underfoot conditions of the race you are training. Running down a steep track requires a very different set of muscle firing, than running down a road as underfoot it will be far more challenging. This is obviously at the extreme end of hill training and it took me quite a while to build up to this but it was very effective for the Pennine 100. Final thoughts Downhill running hurts. Build up slowly and give your muscles time to adjust. When your legs can recover the next day with no more soreness than you would get from a hard run, then you can increase the distance or speed. Remember - running doesn’t only make you fit for races, it makes you fit for life!