, quickens your stride, expands stride length, develops your cardiovascular system, enhances your running economy and can even protect your leg muscles against soreness. In short, hill running will make you a stronger, faster and healthier runner. What’s more

Running up and down hills amid some of Britain’s most remote and rugged terrain might seem the preserve of hardy, veteran athletes, but in reality, anyone with a reasonable level of fitness can enjoy the exhilarating experience of fell running

Ease into faster running with these introductory sessions:1. Easy fartlekFartlek, or speed play, is variable-paced running that emphasises creativity. During a 30-minute run, choose objects to run to – lamp-posts, trees, buildings, other runners

of Runner's World just like you. If you want to bring a discussion back to life, don't be shy: just add a new message at the end of it. Alternatively, start a new thread on the training forum. TRAINING: GENERALGeneralCross-country and trail running - how

. More experienced runners would run the fast section between 10K and half-marathon pace, and may do two sets of 10 minutes with 5-10 minutes jog between; or one 20-minute effort. Try hillwork. Warm up with a 10-minute run to the base of a hill that has a

in the morning; it's not fast enough'. In reality, the ability to be a world-class marathon runner does in part depend on being able to absorb the training over two or three years. I don't know of any elite marathon runner who doesn't average around 100 miles a

’re all unnecessary fears. What’s more, whether you want to beat an ancient 800m PB set on the grass track at school, or outkick the runner who always sprints past you in local 10Ks, adding speed will be immensely rewarding.Speedwork doesn’t just make you

You can find out in our brand-new reader profile survey!In the nine months since we last looked at your runner-profile pages, our membership has doubled to 125,000. Time for an update!As well as the few compulsory fields that new members fill in

, the old days, and full-time workGumpster My limited theory about why some of the top British male runners do not make the step up to the marathon relates to the working environment most of us have.For example, I've read that Ron Hill and Steve Jones did

Hard Training Q&AsTRAINING GENERAL• Do I need to take an "easy week" when my average mileage isn’t that high? • Should you try and break through ‘the wall’ in training? • Is it just the cold weather, or am I getting fitter? • How do I overcome