During treadmill running, use a fan to create your own breeze, and hang a fluid bottle on the side rail. Don’t yourself by pushing up instead of forward when treadmill running. There’s no point in setting the treadmill beyond your 5K running speed. Your running biomechanics will suffer.
Treadmills allow you to set the grade accurately and to choose the hill length. When you move house or State, you can run on the same hill for continuity. No downhill running during the recovery--reduces the pounding. You can take shorter recoveries.
Warm up and stretch. Begin the actual hill training with a quarter mile at 4 percent grade. The running speed could be 20-40 seconds per mile slower than ten kilometer pace. During the recovery quarter at zero grade, run at the same speed. Often, we tend to jog the recovery. The treadmill keeps you honest; you have to keep running. After a quarter mile running at zero grade, repeat the 4 percent rep. Then run two each at 5 and 6 percent. To complete a two mile session of hill running, finish with a half mile...but at only 5 percent elevation. Then run a pleasant warmdown, and this very time efficient training is over. Treadmill time limit at your fitness club? The warmdown can be pool running or biking. On some machines the belt goes faster when you run uphill. Perhaps it’s because we are pushing off better with our toes, propelling the belt along, in addition to the motor’s work. Whatever the reason, if the hill repeats are at 6:40 mile pace, the recovery might be at 7:00 pace. Which is better than the machine forcing you to run it the opposite way around. If your machine allows you the same pace while recovering on the flat, you’ll be running roughly marathon pace--the ideal pace for ridding muscles of their waste products from speedwork. Depending on your weight and race pace, you’ll be at 15K to 5K intensity during treadmill hill reps, even if done at 40 seconds per mile slower than 10K speed. Though steeper hills give you faster results, they also give you higher injury risk. Otherwise, it probably doesn’t matter what grade of hill you use; the important thing is to run hill repeats. The speed is personal also--train at 15K and 5K intensity, plus two mile race pace effort if you are an experienced runner.
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