19/04/2022
Do You Even Hike?
If you want to achieve the best times you possibly can for ultra-trail events, especially for mountainous ultras, learning how to hike fast is important.
A lot of people think of walking during a race as failure, but this is absolutely not true. It all depends on how you frame it. It’s an essential tool in the ultra-trail runner’s arsenal and this skill must be worked on and carefully cultivated. Framing how we think about walking or ‘power hiking’ can also influence how well we perform in ultras. Power hiking should be a tactical decision used in your overall strategy when competing. If you have planned to hike and you are good at it, instead of cursing yourself and criticising how slowly you are moving, you can stay calm and know that you’re saving your legs for running on more runnable gradients.
If you can become a strong hiker, you will find that you could even be looking forward to the uphill sections. Powering past people up steep gradients can re-energise you and give you a mental edge over those who haven’t intentionally practised their hiking skills. While others become more and more dejected after yet another steep uphill is reached late in the race, you could be moving through the field and gaining energy and confidence.
There are a few questions that you may be asking. How do I become a better hiker? How much hiking should I do in my training? And, when should I start hiking during a race?
Becoming a better hiker is really quite simple, you just need to be willing to give it the appropriate time and attention. Find some hills or mountains and hike. The only caveat is that you actually need to put in some effort, you can’t drag your feet the whole way. It really only takes one or two sessions a week to get most of the potential benefits. Make sure that you get onto trails with relatively steep gradients and hike. There’s really not too much more to it. If you don’t have big mountains at your disposal, find some steep hills and do some repeats. It could be beneficial to do this with a pack containing a few kilograms of water or if you have one, use a weighted hiking vest. This will help gain the muscular strength needed to move well on steep gradients. Muscle strength is one aspect of becoming a good hiker and just by doing some squats, lunges, and step-ups in the gym, it’s likely you can gain some of the benefits, but it’s not only about the strength needed. You also need to develop hiking efficiency just like you can gain running efficiency. The more you practise it, the more natural it becomes and the less energy you will use while doing it. This is called motor programming; there are diminishing returns of course. If you have access to a commercial gym, you can also use a treadmill or even better, you can use the stair stepper machine. While it doesn’t prepare you for the variable terrain you may encounter, it certainly will get you most of the gains you can achieve from hiking in the mountains.
It’s quite easy to take several minutes off of your hiking pace while taking minutes off of your running pace is impossible. Think about it. To go from running at an easy pace of 5 minutes per kilometre to 4:30 per kilometre could take years, but you can take minutes off of your hiking pace within months. If you hike just 20% of a race that takes 12 hours to complete, think about all the time you could gain. Often people hike over 50% of really big ultras. You can do the maths, but the point is that you can improve by several hours in 100 km and 100-mile races. With this in mind, it would be silly not to try and get better at hiking.
The next question I posed is how much hiking should I do in training? A good rule of thumb is to calculate the percentage of altitude gain in your race and make sure that you are hiking the same percentage of your total weekly volume. For example, if you are racing a 100 km race with 4000 m of vertical gain, that means that you will likely be hiking at least 4% (4km) of the total 100km. So if you run 100 km in a week, you should probably aim for at least 4 km of hiking per week on relatively steep gradients. You would likely benefit from more than that though. Remember that hiking a steep gradient for 4 km would take a lot longer than running 4 km on a flat road. This could result in 2 or 3 hours of hiking
The final question posed was, when should I start hiking? No one really has the answer to that but once you have practised enough, it will become intuitive. Often when I’m power hiking up a steep hill, the athlete next to me will be trying to run and we will be moving at the same pace. It really just comes down to feel. Future studies may illuminate the magic gradient, but for now, stick with your gut. Rather hike a bit more than you think is necessary and save yourself for running harder on the flats and downhills.
Next week we will be talking about becoming a better downhill runner.
