I'm fortunate in that I live in an area surrounded by hills. Not only is this a beautiful place to live, I think it gives me an advantage when I come across hills in a race.

The folks at Triathlete Magazine also believe hill training can benefit your regime. Check out the details here: http://www.triathletemag.com/Departments/Training/2007/Run_hills__race_fast.htm

Some recommendations in the article:

The first cycle of hill workouts in a Lydiard season is geared towards strength.  It consists of 6-8 repeats on a 1,000 meter moderate incline. As the season progresses and the focus changes to explosive speed, the repeats increase to 8-10 and the length of the hill shrinks to 275 meters.

You need to improve the hip flexors to improve your power. One of the best ways to strengthen those hip flexors and in turn improve the power of our swing phase is to do hill repeats. As we gain strength, our chances of getting injured are diminished.  Not only will we finesse our charges on inclines and finish line kicks on flats, hill repeats also increase our mental confidence. Once you’ve done 15 X 2:00 of a tough hill, one minute of climbing a similar incline in a race will feel easy

How else can you build tireless, feisty, power strokes using hill workouts? One way to maintain volume is to do hill fartleks (Swedish for speed play). Pick a course with hills and focus on surging up the hills. If you are doing strict hill repeats, try varying the paces

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