Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

BTW...where did you find a hill in Oklahoma? What was the % incline?

Good hills are hard to come by here! It's about a 50' climb over 0.2 miles, that's the steepest one although we have bigger hills that are more gentle in grade.

Your question prompted me to go look at the grade though, on MapMyRun. It's shallow at first, but the part I ran the sprints on is about 10%. Some of it is 12-13%.

That seems like a good grade to run. I need to check my hills for incline. I don't think I have any that are that steep though. What did Bam think about the % incline?

"Steep but not too steep so that you can’t go up it flat out" were his words. Felt like I was truly "running" all out, so I don't think it was too steep at all.

I bet you do have some that are that steep though. On MapMyRun, if you just measure a smaller portion of it, it will break down the grade a lot more. So look at what you think is your steepest hill and just measure a quarter-mile of it. Here's mine:

http://i1212.photobucket.com/albums/cc460/joegolf222/elevchart_zps3490f21e.png

Nothing better than a tender butt on a Monday morning - that's exactly what you should be feeling: means you hit the right buttons.

IJR(F) don't worry too much about the exact gradient/% incline. If it looks like a hill it's a hill:)

Like Joe said, you don't want it to be too steep so that it ruins your form. You should be able to go up it at full pelt and then just at the 8 second mark you should be thinking - time to stop.

If the hill is too shallow, you will know. But better too shallow than too steep - this is a bit like doing weights. You're better starting off with a lighter load and finding it easy rather than starting with a heavy load and not being able to do the session.

The first one I did was 11 seconds, and in the last few steps on that one, my legs didn't want to land on their toes anymore, just a little too much fatigue I think. Once I corrected down to 8-9 sec, everything was strong throughout.