Adjustment to running zone pace for hills (going up and down)
Does anyone know of a rough (or precise) method to know how much to adjust your running zone paces for going up and down hills?
Otherwise it is just blowing through the zones on the down hills and struggling going up
I live in an area where it is tough to find flats.
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Lucky you! you must be in great shape! My running coach says it's all about form and not blowing yourself up, or injuring yourself on the downhills. So lean into the hill pump your arms and quicken your cadence, on the way down, stand up straight, open your stride a bit and lower the arms a little for balance. It works for me. When I was in Georgia two summers ago it came in handy. Our home there is all about the hills!
Depends on what you're trying to do with your training, training vs racing, etc.
Yes, when racing we want to manage our effort, running at the same effort both up and down, being careful to not blow up. But when training, I like to run hilly routes because, for me, it's just mentally easier to work harder on hills vs flat. So my hilly runs are like fartlek runs, with lots of pace changes, and the net is that I can get in a challenging run more naturally vs formal interval training.
Like Kim said, I look at GAP in Strava and my performance on the same hilly segments to give myself a goal for a particular workout and track my performance over time.
As for downhill running, I think it's a great tool for building leg durability. While I sorta-avoid crazy steep downhill running, I will run very fast down moderate grade hills, as the pounding builds durability...but I'm careful to not overdo it.
In my case worried some times a constant heart rate could have me close to walking