Hill Repeats Up Silver Fork Road

Monday January 16, 2017

After my great adventure just the day before running Long Hill Repeats at Saint George, Utah, I decided to do some more. This time up American Fork Canyon, on the Tibble Fork Reservoir side of the canyon, from the parking up toward the gate near the Granite Flats Horse Trailer parking. I've done this repeat sequence before a few times. Run from the gate at the parking lot to the gate at the fork to Granite Flats.

That's right, 10F. Dang cold compared to 24 hours prior in Saint George

I wore my New Balance Leadville shoes, and my Kahtoola Microspikes. It was colder than yesterday by about 30 degrees. Yes. 10F was the temperature. It's difficult to judge how warm or cold you might be under those conditions. When running downhill you have to flip up your hood or otherwise bundle up, and running uphill, unzip a bit to let the heat escape.

Running shoes by New Balance. Microspikes by Kahtoola

Three laps is a bit over 5 miles and that's what I normally do up here with the time I have. That gives me almost a thousand feet of vertical and a pretty good workout. I wore softshell fleece pants by Sporthill with Saxx boxer briefs and Columbia baselayers. I wore a Pearl Izumi softshell hoodie and Columbia vest. One nice addition to my collection is an Icebug buff that kept the lower part of my face warm.

I got in 5.2 miles and got my Strava PR for the first uphill segment. [STRAVA]

---

Dirt Road Hill Laps in Saint George Utah

Sunday, Jan 15 2017

While on a road trip to Las Vegas for a gymnastics competition for my daughter, I had a few hours to kill early Sunday morning in Saint George Utah. The weather was perfect, about 40F and right at the break of dawn I got out to the trailhead, the top of the dirt road behind the condos at the Green Valley Race Loops (MTB race course}.

Mountain biking Bearclaw Poppy at Saint George Utah

I've been on this course a number of times, prerunning the course as a NICA certified Level 2 High School Mountain Bike coach, and then riding the local trails for fun and adventure. It's a blast out there. I will someday run the backcountry trails, but today I needed to do some hill repeats.

From the top of the hill at the condo, down to the lowest section of road is a shorter hill, then the long hill up to the water tank at the walk-over gate to Bearclaw Poppy. I went out and back twice for a total of 5.4 miles and 853 ft of vertical. [Strava]

These are really long hill laps for most normal hill repeat training, but it was hard work to keep the pace up for so long. Much like a Vertical K would be.

---

Hill Repeats On the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Utah County

Short Video on Facebook:

Hill Repeats
Getting some hill repeats in on the mountain outside American Fork UT. The Bonneville Shoreline trail on the benches above the Utah Lake valley. Training for Skyrunning event October 2 near Flagstaff, AZ. Stay in the loop and learn about training for such an adventure.
Posted by Seven Summits Body on Thursday, September 24, 2015

I did about a mile to warm up, then at the base of a short but steep hill on the dirt road I did some hill repeats.

• Pick a hill to run up. 
• Go up as fast as you can. 
• Walk down. 
• Repeat.

Hill Repeats sound simple, right?

My hill today was pretty short, about 80' of elevation gain in a little over a hundred yards. I was able to get in just under 8:00 pace running up it. I did 10 laps of the hill, walking gently down. I also train running down, but that would be another article.

I've got another hill near me that is about 200' high over a little less than a half mile and I normally do only 5 or 6 repeats on that one. It just depends on your goals and your training programming. Mix it up a bit and see what works for your own circumstances.