Greenwich Hills (Sat)

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Saturday Hill Training in Greenwich

“If you can push hard up the hills, pushing hard on the flat is easy” (Hannah Cockcroft’s Dad).

Hill training has a history of ups and downs but has been firmly hated since day 1 for all runners. Hill training isn’t just for those intent on hill racing – it makes you stronger and faster on the flat too. Strengthen your legs and lungs – and even make new running friends – by joining in our slightly tough but effective, fun and sociable coached hill session all year round.

There are ample, clean public, pay on entry, toilets, water fountains and a café for post-training refreshments.

The current coach is Philomena Skeffington

Where and when?

We gather here in time to start the warm-up at 9.30am on Saturdays. You can store your gear in the boot of a car we usually have, at your own risk, whilst training. Training is usually over by around 11.00 am.   Pre-booking for each session by midnight on the Friday is essential. Sign-up is via the WhatsApp group.  If more than 20 people sign up, we will divide into two groups to reduce the risk of crowding other park-users. 

Aims

The sessions are suitable for new, old, fast, slow, disabled, cat lovers, hamster haters, vegans, LGBTQ+ and even runners from north the river are welcome along. The sessions are designed to keep the groups together in loops and we only lose a few runners each year (still get sightings of Dave from 1987 every few years – still trying to find his way out, poor thing!)

We really want new members; people training for races and who want to get stronger or even just to see what these hill sessions are all about.

We make the sessions suitable for all levels of runners by providing different levels of training and splitting into small groups where required.

In general we have a 4 or 5 week rolling programme, depending on whether the month has 5 Saturdays. The first Saturday of the month includes smaller inclines and uncomplicated routes, so is particularly inclusive for hill running novices who can focus on learning the technical teaching points we provide, those returning from injury and the advanced runners who just want to run fast!

Each Saturday we aim to make the session a little more difficult. The 4th Saturday is always a Kenyan session, this is a non-stop running session, again we have tact-tics to keep slower runners with us.

If there is a 5th Saturday we do one of our “specials”. These are one of: hill sprints/Indian file/relays or maybe even a time trial.

We aim to help you: build leg-strength (especially the quadriceps and gluteal muscles – i.e. thighs and buttocks); develop good hill-running technique; strengthens your heart and lungs; increase lactic acid tolerance and – not least – increases your confidence on hills. You should begin to notice benefits after about 4 sessions.

Athletes suffering from suffering from calf, achilles tendon or plantar fasciitis injuries may find that hills exacerbates these injuries.

What to bring

Bring water or other drinks, fell shoes (ideally), cross-country spikes or your muddiest trainers, and something warm to put on after training. Bring your Heart Rate Monitor too, if you have one.

What to expect

The precise content of the session varies from week to week but is broadly speaking as follows:

  1. Warm-up of around 2 miles jogging, followed by dynamic mobility exercises and strides. Great way for newbies to say hi and get to know everyone.
  2. The main hill session, rough guide as in table below.
  3. Cool-down jog of up to a mile.
  4. Stretch.
  5. Total distance to write in your training log: about 5.0–7.5 miles (or 20-40 if you get lost). Count it as a speed/strength session.

Adjourn to the Tea House for chat and refreshments (optional).

Session plans for the weeks ahead

Date Session
1st Saturday Welcome to hills – Best one for newbies – easy hills, simple to follow and will be focus on technique, speed and craic
2nd Saturday Vomit Rocket – push hard or go home 3x10min on the toughest hills. Not fun but feels great after!
3rd Saturday Steam Punk – 16, 12, 8 min on 3 different hills – stamina and solid pace like a steam train with a punk attitude towards hills
4th Saturday Monthly Misery – (previously known as Kenyan hills) – 45 mins up and down 12 different hills with no breaks. All welcome and it is easy to drop in/out of hills in line with your fitness and training needs.
5th Saturday Mountain out of a Mole Hill – For legal reasons we have been advised to keep the details confidential due to trigger words that increase the risk of causing heart palpitations, anxiety, dizziness, nausea. Vomiting mid-run is deemed the norm. There is a reason this is only held 4 times a year!

Contact details

bermondsey@serpentine.org.uk

On these sessions we welcome runners of all fitness levels and abilities. If you have special needs and are unsure whether you want to give this a try please contact us on the above email so that we can help.

We also occasionally organise additional fun runs at Oxleas Wood.