Running hills in Wellington

Wellington

AWAndrew WhartonSport scientist and high-level masters runner · AW Run Coach, Wellington · 5 min read

You do not have to go looking for hills in Wellington. The useful question is how to make them work for you rather than against you.

The short answer

Use Wellington's hills three ways: short hill reps (45 to 90 seconds, hard, jog down) for strength and running economy; sustained hill tempo (15 to 25 minutes continuous at threshold effort) for strength endurance; and hilly easy running, where you run the effort and ignore the pace entirely. Mount Victoria and Te Ahumairangi cover most needs, Wrights Hill Road suits sustained work, and the Tip Track is there when you want to find out something about yourself.

Why hills are worth doing deliberately

Hill running gives you three things that flat running does not, or does less efficiently.

Strength without the injury risk of speed. Running uphill hard recruits the same muscle at similar intensity to fast flat running, but at lower impact and lower stride velocity. That makes it substantially safer — which is why it is one of the first things I add for masters runners and one of the last things I take away.

Running economy. Regular hill work improves how much energy you use at a given flat pace. There is good evidence for it, and you get it as a side effect of sessions you would do anyway.

Specificity, if your races are hilly. Which, in this region, many of them are.

The three hill sessions

1. Short hill reps

8 to 12 x 45 to 90 seconds hard uphill, jog down recovery.

The effort is around 8 out of 10 — hard but controlled, not a sprint. Focus on posture: tall, eyes up, quick cadence, arms driving. Do not lean from the waist.

The jog down is the recovery and it should be genuinely easy. Downhill running is where the damage happens, not uphill, so run down under control.

Where: Mount Victoria has a dozen suitable pitches. Any steady 200 to 300m stretch of Wellington suburb will do.

2. Sustained hill tempo

15 to 25 minutes continuous uphill at threshold effort.

This is one of the better strength-endurance sessions there is, and it is very hard to overcook because the hill limits your pace for you. Effort 7 out of 10, breathing controlled, rhythm steady.

Where: Wrights Hill Road in Karori is close to ideal — long, sealed, and a consistent gradient. Te Ahumairangi works on trail.

3. Rolling hill running

Easy or steady running over undulating ground, entirely on effort.

Not a session as such, but arguably the most valuable of the three because it is what most of your Wellington running is anyway. The skill is running the effort — easing back on the climbs, letting the descents come to you, and completely ignoring what the watch says about pace.

Coach's note

The mistake I see most in this city is runners treating hilly easy runs as hard runs by accident. You set out for a 50-minute easy run, the route climbs out of town, your heart rate is at 85 percent for fifteen minutes, and you arrive home having done a tempo you did not plan. Then Tuesday's session is flat and you cannot work out why. If your easy route is genuinely hilly, walk the steepest pitches. I mean it. Walking a 20 percent gradient on an easy day is not weakness — it is the difference between an easy run and a session.

The hills, ranked by what they are for

Hill	Character	Best for
Mount Victoria	Short, steep climbs, trail and road options	Short reps, general hill work, accessibility
Te Ahumairangi / Tinakori	Steady trail climbs, several loop options	3–6 min reps, sustained trail efforts
Wrights Hill Road	Long sealed climb, consistent gradient	Sustained uphill tempo
Ngaio Gorge	Long steady road climb	Strength endurance, commuting runs
Brooklyn to the turbine	Long road climb with a view	Uphill tempo, hill long runs
Makara Peak	Trail climbing, MTB park	Trail strength, race preparation
Tip Track	About 3.5km and 400m of climbing to Hawkins Hill	A benchmark effort. Once a block.

Downhill running matters too

Most people think of hill training as uphill training. But eccentric loading on descents is where quads get trashed, and it is a specific adaptation you have to train for — particularly if you are racing anything with descent in it.

Introduce it gradually. A few controlled descents at moderate pace, building over weeks. Land under your hips rather than reaching out in front, keep the cadence high, and let gravity do the work rather than braking against it.

If you have ever finished a hilly race with quads that would not work for three days, that is what untrained eccentric loading feels like. Two or three weeks of controlled downhill running prevents almost all of it.

An eight-week hill progression

• Weeks 1–2: 6 x 45 sec hills, easy jog down. Effort 7/10.
• Weeks 3–4: 8 x 60 sec hills, effort 8/10.
• Weeks 5–6: 10 x 60 sec, or 6 x 90 sec.
• Weeks 7–8: Swap to 20 min sustained uphill tempo, or 4 x 4 min at threshold effort uphill.

One hill session a week. Not two. It counts as one of your two quality days.

Racing hills

Even effort, not even pace. That means slowing on the climbs — often considerably — and being willing to give back time you will more than recover on the descent and the flat.

The runners who race hills badly are almost always the ones who try to hold pace on the way up. It costs them three times what it gains, and by the second half of the race they are running the flats slower than the people they passed on the hill.

If you have moved here from somewhere flat

Give yourself three months. Your paces will be slower, your legs will be sore in new places, and it will feel like you have lost fitness. You have not.

Run on effort, add the hills gradually, get some strength work into your week — particularly calves and glutes — and let it come. Almost everyone who trains here for a year ends up stronger for it. The city does a lot of the work for you, whether you asked it to or not.