I've found that hill workouts are one of the best workouts you can do for cross country. Not only does hill work prepare you for running hills in a race, it also builds muscle and teaches your body to run fast when you're struggling for oxygen. It is an essential part of any cross country program. Here are a few pointers about hill work.
How Do I Do Hill Work?
Hill work, or hill repeats, simply means sprinting up a hill and jogging back down over and over. You should try to find a hill between 200 and 400 meters. Also, be sure that the hill isn't too steep, and also not too flat, but has a medium slope. What's medium? Well, flat enough that you can actually run all the way up, and steep enough that the workout makes you breathe hard.
When you start to do hill work, begin with around 4 repeats, and gradually increase week by week until you can get up to 8 repeats. Remember that hill work is hard on the lower legs, and can agravate injuries like achilles tendonitis, plantar fascitis, and shin spilts. If you feel pain in any of these areas don't do hills!!! One other note: jog for 5-10 minutes to warmup before you do the repeats. After the workout, jog 5-10 minutes to cooldown. Never start your workout without warming up before hand!!
Putting the Miles in With the Hills
Due to the intensity of hill workouts, it's hard to run very many miles on a hill work day. Therefore, I recommend you do your hills workouts in the morning and, in the evening, put in 3-4 easy miles. This way you can get in the hill workout without sacrificing the miles.
Frequency of Hill Workouts
See my section on speed training in my base building section to understand how often you should do hill workouts.
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