Trail Notes | Trail Skills

the skill nobody tells you to train

Power Hiking

Is a Skill.

Hiking the climbs is not where your race falls apart. It is where the smartest runners quietly save the day they are about to have.

Somewhere along the way, most of us learned that walking in a race means we have failed. That the strong runners run everything, and stopping to hike is a small surrender. It is one of the most expensive beliefs you can carry onto a trail.

On steep ground, a strong power hike is often as fast as a grinding run, and it costs your body far less. The runners who move well at the end of a long trail race are almost never the ones who ran every climb. They are the ones who hiked the steep sections with intention, kept something in the tank, and were still moving when everyone around them had emptied out.

Power hiking is not the absence of running. It is a technique in its own right, with a posture, a rhythm and a set of drills you can train. And on a runnable course, where it is tempting to force every metre, knowing when and how to hike is what protects the rest of your race.

Trail Note  ·  01

Why hiking the climbs is the faster choice

As a slope gets steeper, the cost of running it rises sharply while the speed you gain shrinks. There is a crossover point on every climb where running is no longer buying you meaningful time, but it is still draining you at a much higher rate. Past that point, a strong hike covers nearly the same ground for a fraction of the energy.

The energy you save does not disappear. It is stored for later, for the runnable sections, the long valley climbs and the final kilometres where races are actually decided. Forcing a run up an early steep pitch can feel heroic and cost you twenty minutes you never get back at the end.

Hiking also changes the muscles and joints doing the work, which gives your running pattern a brief recovery without you losing momentum. On a long day, that variety is protective. It is one of the reasons experienced ultra-runners look so calm on the climbs: they are not struggling, they are managing.

Trail Note  ·  02

The technique, broken down

A good power hike has a shape. It is not a tired walk. It is purposeful, upright and rhythmic, and once you feel it you will recognise it every time. Build it from the ground up.

The hands on thighs is the piece most runners skip, and it is the one that changes everything. By driving through your arms, you take load off the legs and turn your whole body into the engine. On a long climb that small mechanical advantage adds up to a lot of saved effort.

Trail Note  ·  03

Knowing when to switch

The harder skill is not the hiking itself. It is the decision. Switching to a hike a few seconds too late, again and again across a long race, is how runners arrive at the back half already cooked. The cue to listen for is your breathing and your form: when running the climb sends your breathing over the edge, or your stride collapses into a shuffle, you are past the crossover point.

A useful rule for your first ultra: if the climb is steep enough that running it pushes your effort well above your easy conversational zone, hike it. You are not trying to run the climbs. You are trying to arrive at the top with your effort controlled and your legs intact. Make the switch a deliberate choice you practise, so on race day it happens automatically and without that flicker of guilt.

Trail Note  ·  04

Drills you can fold into this week's runs

You do not need a separate session to train this. Build the skill inside the runs you are already doing, on the hilliest trail you can reach.

Repeat the same climb a few times if you can, hiking it with full technique each rep. A handful of focused efforts a week, done consistently, is enough to make the pattern second nature long before race day.

Trail Note  ·  05

The other half: descending well

Climbing skill is only half of moving well on hilly trail. How you go down matters just as much, and it is where many of us lose the legs we worked so hard to protect on the climbs. Quads that get hammered braking down the early descents have nothing left for the climbs that come later, and on a course that drops fast before a long valley ascent, that trade is brutal.

Good descending is relaxed, not reckless. Keep your feet light and quick, let your eyes scan a few metres ahead rather than fixing on the ground right below you, and lean very slightly forward with the slope instead of sitting back and braking. Braking hard with every step is what shreds the quads. Flowing with the trail, letting gravity do some of the work, is what saves them.

Trail Note  ·  06

Terrain, not location

You do not need the race course, or even mountains, to train these skills. The technique is the same on any gradient. What you are practising is intent: hiking the steep sections with strong form, flowing the descents without braking, and making the switch between running and hiking a smooth, unhurried decision.

Use the hilliest trail, the steepest path or even the longest set of stairs you can get to. A short, sharp local climb repeated a few times teaches your body the same lesson as a long alpine ascent. Adapt the terrain to what you have. Keep the purpose exactly the same, and the skills will transfer to race day.

Trail Note  ·  07

Let go of the story that walking is failing

The biggest barrier to power hiking is rarely the body. It is the belief that hiking means we are not good enough, not fit enough, not a real runner. So we run climbs we should hike, burn through our legs to avoid a feeling, and pay for it later. The belief costs far more than the walking ever would.

Watch the most experienced ultra-runners on a steep climb and you will see them hiking, calm and efficient, conserving everything for where it counts. They are not hiking because they are weak. They are hiking because they are skilled. Reframing the hike from surrender to strategy is one of the most freeing shifts you can make as a trail runner, and it starts now, in training, every time you choose the hike without apologising for it.

Trail Note  ·  08

Train it now, trust it later

By race day, your power hike and your descending should not be things you think about. They should be things your body simply does, because you have rehearsed them so many times in training that they have become instinct. That is the whole point of practising now, on every climb and every descent you meet.

Confidence on hard terrain is not bravado. It is the quiet calm of having done the thing enough times that it no longer scares you. Every hilly run between now and race day is a rehearsal for the runner you will be on the day.

hike with purpose, flow without fear

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