Guest post by Chris Beavon, RunLab Media
The honest answer to “should I run this climb or hike it” depends almost entirely on race length. We took a 20 percent gradient hill, an elite trail runner, an amateur (me), and tried to find the line. Running each climb saved about 80 seconds, but cost two minutes per rep above lactate threshold. Whether that trade is worth it depends on how much climbing you’ve got ahead of you. Here’s what we found, and how to use it.
If you’ve ever been halfway up a steep climb in a trail race wondering whether to keep running or commit to a hike, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common questions in trail and ultra running, and the honest answer turned out more interesting than I expected.
I’m an amateur runner and one half of RunLab Media, the YouTube channel I host with Vlad, an elite trail runner. We recently spent a morning on a steep hill filming a structured experiment to figure out the actual cost of running versus hiking, and where the line should sit. Here’s what I took away.
Contents
What we did
A 380 metre climb at around 20 percent gradient. Six reps. One control rep where we both ran our natural race-day strategy, two run reps, two hike reps, and a final rep with poles. Heart rate was blinded on our watches throughout, so neither of us could pace to a number. We just ran or hiked by feel and called out our perceived effort at the top of each climb.
What I found
For me, running each climb saved about 80 seconds compared to hiking. That’s the upside.
The cost was that my heart rate averaged 11 bpm higher running than hiking, with peaks pushing close to my maximum on the run reps. Hiking, my HR was still elevated above easy but well below my lactate threshold, indicating it was sustainable for a long time. Running, I was effectively redlining at the top of every climb.
Vlad’s numbers told a different story. His HR on the run reps averaged 142 bpm. His recent 2:33 marathon averaged 167 bpm, sustained over the full distance. On the same climb that pushed me close to my maximum, Vlad was running at a heart rate well below what he holds for hours in a marathon.
His max HR across the entire session was 164 bpm. He never crossed his estimated lactate threshold once, on any rep, including the hardest one. Same hill, same effort, completely different cost.
The elite isn’t doing something fundamentally different on the climb. He just has more cardiac headroom, which lets him bias toward running where I have to bias toward hiking.
The decision rule (when to run vs hike)
What follows is what I took away as an amateur, based on my own data. Your numbers will differ, but this could be a helpful starting point to estimate from. The right call depends almost entirely on race length:
- Up to 21km, run all the steep pitches.
- 30 to 50km, hike anything at 20 percent or steeper.
- 50 to 100km, hike anything at 18 percent or steeper.
- 100km and longer, default to hiking anything at 15 percent or steeper.
- 100-mile or multi-day, hike anything over 10 percent.
The reasoning is the same at every distance. Above-threshold work compounds across a long race: more glycogen draw, more muscle damage, slower recovery between climbs. Running buys you minutes early. Past about three hours of cumulative climbing, it starts costing you hours late.
Poles do real work
Our last rep was hike-with-poles, done after five hard reps when my legs were cooked. It came in 22 to 33 seconds faster than my no-poles hikes, and subjectively it felt as easy as my freshest hike of the day. The leg burn dropped significantly. The load shifted to my upper body.
If you’re racing anything over 50km and you’re not already using poles, start training with them now. The leg-burn drop alone is worth the carry weight, particularly in the back half of a long race.
Find your own threshold
The specific gradient or HR number where you should switch is personal. Your max heart rate, your hiking economy, your training history all play a role.
It helps to have a good understanding of where your own lactate tipping points (LT1 and LT2) sit. We cover how to find them in our video on heart rate training. Once you know yours, you can build a personal run-or-hike rule from them, like switching to a hike when your HR pushes into LT2 territory on a sustained climb.
The bottom line
The next time you’re staring up a steep climb in the middle of a race, you’ll have a number to check against instead of guessing whether running is worth the cost. For short races, run it. For long ones, default to hiking and bring poles. The seconds you save running steep pitches early have a way of becoming the minutes you lose at kilometre 90.
The full video is over on the RunLab Media YouTube channel: side-by-side HR traces, Vlad’s coaching cues from the day, the lot. The companion data doc on our site has the per-rep numbers, methodology, and limitations for anyone who wants the detail.
RunMotion is an adaptive coaching platform that incorporates hills to make you stronger. Plans flex around real life and your goals, so the work you put in on climbs like this one actually shows up in your race.