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TRAINING TIPS

Train – hill sessions

  • 4th July 20183rd January 2021
  • by ClaudiS

 

 

COACHING TIPS by Claudi.

Do you train for mountain adventures? Fascinated by the magnitude of majestic mountain ranges? Up in Scotland or in the Alps? If you are living in those areas, you are spoilt for choice. Training grounds for any ability and ambition, views for days.

Well and if you aren’t and are stuck like some of us in a city, the closest you can get to a mountain is to run up stairs in a tower block or do hill rep after hill rep to accumulate a mere hundred meters of elevation. Sounds like fun? Barely. But with the right attitude and some fun workouts we can even turn our concrete jungle into a fantastic training playground.

We’ve written up a few hill sessions and a little bit about the benefits of incorporating hill effort into your swim/ bike/ run and ultra training.

 

↠ Why should you incorporate hill training sessions?
– Hill training sessions are a great way to increase your power, stamina and form. More muscles get switched on (arm drive, knee drive, working from your glutes and core) compared to running on the flat. And as much as we loathe hills, they surely translate into flat speed. Hill work is speed work in disguise. Hills strengthen your lower body and work your core (stability / posture). Those sessions are perfect to mix things up, especially when you are crunched for time. Incorporate a hill session or run a hillier route once a week. If you train for trail and mountain races – build more of those sessions into your training plan. Some easy runs on a rolling route, a dedicated hill session plus adding 1-2 strength sessions to your running regime. Body weight exercises targeting your legs and core (hips / back / upper body – you’ll need all of this on the trail). If you feel confident in delivering those with good technique, add weights.

 

↠ TYPES OF HILL SESSIONS ↞
There are many ways to structure a hill session. And even in a relatively flat city like London, you can always find an incline to play with.

• Slopes and inclines 
find an incline (bridge / fly over / hill / grassy slope / etc). The shorter the climb, the faster you want to tackle it. The steeper, the shorter your stride becomes, focussing on landing under your hips, upright position, slight forward lean from the ankles. Engage your glutes and core, drive the elbows back. Don’t cross your arms in front of your body. Look ahead / slightly up. Breathe naturally, deep into your belly not at the top of your lungs.

• Stairs 
track down a set of stairs and work your way up. Taking every step (short stride / high cadence) and then drive every two (longer more powerful stride / power). As a warm up: dynamic squat jumps upwards, landing wide and light under your hips. Using rebound momentum to drive you up the stairs. Really use your arms for this, coming out of a low squat – drive upwards and forwards. Easy jog down.

• Time, effort, pace, rest 
different inclines, different session. You can work with reps or time based. Effort – the shorter the harder, same effort up or down, hard effort up easy down. Rest can be active: easy jog down, walk or stationary: stop until your heart rate has come down enough to tackle the next rep. Aim to hold your last rep as strong and fast as your first. If you can’t do this, either pace yourself better in the beginning or opt for fewer reps. Build sensibly over time. Adding lots of hill work into your running will work your body differently – watch out for ITB / back / knee / calf issues. Too much too soon will get you into trouble. Give those big muscle groups a good stretch afterwards.

 

• Hill sprints 
short and punchy, these can be anything between 15 to 45 seconds of hard uphill effort. Turn around at the top and recover on the down with a very easy jog. Go again. Start with 5 reps and add 1-2 each week.

• Kenyan hills
as mentioned above: steady to hard sustained effort up AND down. Rest at the bottom. Start with 5 reps and add 1-2 each week.

• Pyramid hills  
15, 30, 35, 60 seconds uphill effort (hard). Jog back recovery. Great for working aerobic and anaerobic power. A pyramid means going back down as well: so if you feel good do 15, 30, 45, 60, 45, 30, 15 seconds. Take a good rest after each set. Start with 3 sets. Add one every other week.

• Long hill reps 
3-5 minutes of continuous uphill effort. Well that’s going to be a challenge here as we won’t find a hill long enough for this. Find one that you can run up for around 60seconds (steady). Try to continue at the top, you may need to increase your pace once you hit the flat. Carrying over a harder effort. Start with 4 sets, add one every week.

• Progressive hills 
Set yourself a set time or distance and with each rep you’re trying to become quicker: either run further in the time you’ve set (15sec to 5minutes), or reach the same distance (half way up the hill / top of hill) faster each time. In order to achieve this, start your first rep(s) easy (6/10 RPE). Build into steady (7/10). Steady into hard (8/10). Into all out (9/10). Opt for 4-5 sets and build more over time.

• Summit attack 
Something like getting progressively faster. Find your hill and work 75% upwards at a steady effort (7/10). Attack the final 25% with a sprint. Or if you are lucky and have a hill that kicks steeper at the top: try to keep your legs turning all the way to the summit without slowing much (London: Primrose Hill). Start with 4-5 reps. Add on one when you revisit this set.

• In between heaven and hell
A killer set which will make you see power and endurance come together in no time. This session is particularly fun if you don’t have much of a hill or incline to run. Simulating fatigue in the legs by adding resistance work. Building essential overall strength too. Start at the bottom of a slope and get into a lunge position. 15 controlled repetitions of low, pulsing ones, 15 full range lunges. Swap legs. Then sprint up the slope/ hill as hard as you can. At the top, drop straight into 15 press ups (alternatively on your knees or a few less). Jog back down to the start. Repeat this cycle five times. No rest at any point. Catch your breath during lunges or the easier downhill section. Take a few minutes of standing recovery and go again. Opt for 2 sets (2×5) and build more over time. You could also play with the amount of repetitions (lunges / press ups), alternatively do wall squats (against a tree?), hold for 30-60seconds. Then sprint up. Here’s a little video of a session Claudi has down before work. It won’t take long and will leave you pretty toast.

↠ TRAINING PROGRESS ↞
To see if this is working – record your reps / time / distance of your first session. Any location, any session. As they are all different, note it down each time you do a new session. These ‘first hills’ will become your benchmark session. After some time (weeks / months) – revisit the session and see what’s different. You should become stronger, faster and fitter. Draw from those successes and keep up the good work.

Hills never get easier. But we hopefully we have showed you how to love them a little more. If you want more tips or are looking into getting coached, join us every Tuesday for our First Light sessions in London (free). You can also drop us a line hello@wearedaybreak.org. And follow what our community has to say on Facebook.

Tell us how your hill sessions are going. Or if you have any questions? What do you hate or love about hill work?

Your DB Coaching Team!

 

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Let us know what you think and want to see more of. We’re keen to bring good content and great experiences to life. Interested?

COLLABORATIONS

Spotlight – Claudi

  • 12th March 20183rd January 2021
  • by ClaudiS

 

In 2017 Strava launched ‘The New Home of Your Athletic Life
Introducing Athlete Posts’ – 36 athletes from amateur to pro were able to share their expertise beyond training stats.

Claudi, our Co-Founder, was amongst those first few chosen ones and has been bringing in her expertise as ultra runner, triathlon and mental performance coach.

Curating. Creating. Sharing. How training fits into life. How training changes when life takes priority. How both can be balanced and brought together. Her learnings are closely linked to conquering Europe’s stunning mountains. She has travelled most of 2017 taking in Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. Her ‘EuroPeaks Tour’ was part of her preparations for UTMB – Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a 170km circumnavigation of Europe’s highest peak Mont Blanc, with 10,000m of elevation gain, entirely racing, semi supported, on foot from France into Italy, Switzerland and back into France, starting and finishing in trail running mecca Chamonix. Leaving her flat London home base, discovering new challenges, physical and mental highs, setbacks and strength on this tour.

Her time spent exploring on foot and pushing her limits was also the beginning of We Are Daybreak – you can read about our grassroots in one of her Strava posts

Join The Euro Peaks Tour – Grassroots to life

Dip your toes in ↠
‘Passion doesn’t thrive on compromise. Your dreams deserve attention.
#JoinTheEuroPeaksTour is a vehicle for your dreams. Growth and development – physically, mentally and emotionally. A project aimed at longevity and facilitation. It’s dynamic with room for growth. It’s flexible and it’s shareable. It won’t just be about me, it will also be about you. It will be about us. A joint (ad)venture. Defining passion. Thriving from ideas and dreams.’

Which then led to our launch in January 2018:

We are Daybreak. New beginnings.

Dip your toes in ↠
‘No shortcuts in running. No shortcuts in life. This is why running (sports even) is such a brilliant space, for us to explore and learn. Move yourself and you’ll move your mind. In a familiar manner – Do as you say, do more than you say. Be real. Be honest. Stay true to your heart. Be good. And surround yourself with good people. And bloody have fun. It’s a wild world out there. And we’re here to help you get ready to explore and conquer.’

Find more of Claudi’s posts around her athletic life on her Strava post page.

Claudi has recently been ask to share her thoughts on Strava athlete posts and influencer Marketing on Freestak – The Endurance Sports Network. Home of hundreds of influencers in various fields of expertise and sports in the UK. Claudi herself having made a career in advertising, marketing and design over the past 20 years; shifting into entrepreneurial ship and coaching seven year ago. Having founded and helped shape some of the biggest run communities in London (AdventRunning, adidasRunners) and launching We are Daybreak in 2018 to inject a breath of fresh air into the saturated run community market; her expertise runs deep to create bespoke and engaging events and experiences for B2B and B2C.

How brands who are working with content creators will benefit

Dip your toes in ↠
‘I believe by being able to display insights into the athletic life of real people, brands can get a good feel about the athlete behind the profile. Marketing has shifted towards building brand values and brand loyalty through community, actual people walking the talk. Athletes on Strava become role models for the every day athlete (who are incidentally the majority of sports consumers).’

Read the full article on her tips for influencers and brands.

These are just some examples in how brands, networks and communities can do co-creation. How online platforms can create tangible offline experiences. And how our team at We are Daybreak can help bridge those two worlds.

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Let us know what you think and want to see more of. We’re keen to bring good content and great experiences to life. Interested?

IN THE PRESS

PR – Adventure Travel

  • 20th February 20183rd January 2021
  • by ClaudiS

 

 

Our Co-Founder Matt recently got asked by Adventure Travel Magazine to share his experience of sailing around the world with Clipper Around the World.

Matt left his corporate London life back in August 2015 to sail 50,000+ nautical miles in 11 months around the world. With no previous sailing experience necessary, teams of around 18 embarked on their journey in London on twelve 70-foot ocean racing yachts. Ready for an adventure of a lifetime. Eight legs and 14 races later he’s come back to his home port in July 2016.

Dip your toes in ↠
‘Ideal Travel partner and why? – Anyone with a sense of adventure, sense of humour, and a little resilience in the face of adversity! And someone prepared to throw the plan out the window! 
Lifelong ambition? – I’m lucky to have already achieved on of my early ambitions of circumnavigating the globe by boat – perhaps next time I’ll go by foot.
Most memorable moment? – One of the standout images is, and will always be, sailing into Cape Town, South Africa. For the 24 hours before, the crew were constantly buffeted by a strong front heeling at 45 degrees and crashing upwind through and unsettled sea – in freezing temperatures. As we reached the continent, the weather suddenly lifted, the wind swinging in our favour as dawn and land approached.
Most dangerous moment? – …’

Ordinary, everyday people doing extraordinary things. We can’t wait for Matt to share more of his adventure with our Daybreak community this year.

Featured in: Adventure Travel Magazine. 2018 Adventure Bucket List cover story. Issue 133. January | February 2018

 

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Let us know what you think and want to see more of. We’re keen to bring good content and great experiences to life. Interested?

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