Running: What the Fell? An Introduction to Hill Running

Ready for a lung buster? The southern Idaho foothills make perfect fell running terrain for our author. Text and photos by Steve Graepel

I had just moved to Boise and was training to climb Mount Fairweather in Alaska’s notorious Fairweather Range. Hardened legs and deep lungs are de rigueur for alpine climbing; the rolling Idaho foothills were the perfect crucible to prepare for the 15,000-foot giant. So each weekend I would shoulder a weighted pack and hump loads up and down our steep foothills. I’d climb for three to four hours, accumulating thousands of feet of elevation.

Fairweather was a bust—there’s not much you can do to train for chest-deep confectionery snow—but I knew I had tapped a new power supply with my off-piste training cirque. My legs and ankles were stronger, I had less knee pain, and my aerobic capacity was boosted. The following year I swapped the boots and pack for my running shoes and began to run my off-trail route.

What I didn’t know was that running hills was a tried and true sport. It's called fell running. The British have been doing this sort of thing for centuries (no surprise there, hey have a knack of wringing good sport out of hard efforts: Everest, the South Pole (Shackleton!), a 20-year Scotch...). What started nearly 1,000 years ago in an effort to find a royal messenger kicked off the Highland Games and eventually matriculated into a sanctioned culture of mountain runners, weaving a bit of trail running, orienteering, cross country and sometimes, grueling overnighters. The goal? To run the steepest hills as fast as you can!

Running is a simple sport and its best appreciated that way. But taking it to the highlands requires some slight modifications to your strategy. Here are some tips to help ease into it.

Gear Review: Tecnica Tarantula Trail Runner's Superious Snug, Smooth Fit

By National Geographic Adventure Contributing Editor Steve Casimiro, editor of The Adventure Life

Spend enough time studying hiking shoe specifications and you’ll notice that on paper they’re all pretty much alike. Rubber tread, squishy EVA midsole, no-slip laces, some kind of frame, exo-skeleton, or wrap-around that pulls everything nice and snug. But from those similar raw materials, great differences arise--a lesson I relearned when I slipped on Tecnica’s Tarantula ($115).

The minute I put my foot in the fastacker/trail runner, I knew it was different. The tongue doesn’t really exist--the upper is all one piece, with a mesh vented panel where the tongue normally sits. This makes it a little more difficult to put on, but once it’s on it feels like it’s molded to your foot, a perfect firm-yet-gentle wrap of the arch and top of the foot, with enough room in the toebox for your piggies to get wiggy. Saying it fits like a glove doesn’t do justice because most gloves I’ve worn don’t fit that well, but you get the idea.

South Africa: Giving Back Locally With World Vision

By Korena Di Roma, reporting from South Africa

I've been traveling with Team World Vision following their success at the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. After the race, we spent time at one of World Vision’s development areas in the Drakensburg mountains. Afterward, a group of us flew to Kenya to meet some of the children who benefited from the runners’ sponsorship efforts.

Now we’re back in Nairobi after nearly a week spent high above the Rift Valley in western Kenya. Just days after finishing Comrades, three team members, including Hannah Landecker and Andy Baldwin, ran a breezy 5K with a group of marathoners who train in Eldoret. At around 6,500 feet and just north of the Equator, Eldoret is an ideal training ground for professional runners looking to train at altitude year-round, according to Josh Cox, who trained there for seven weeks in 2001. A squat outpost with plenty of flat terrain, Eldoret is home to many of the world’s most decorated runners. Members of its native Kalenjin tribe have earned 31 Olympic and World Championship medals, 12 of them gold.

South Africa: 56-Mile Comrades Marathon - The Results Are In

National Geographic Digital Media's Korena Di Roma will be traveling to South Africa to report on the Comrades Marathon, the start of the World Cup, and World Vision's humanitarian efforts in the country. Follow her dispatches here. Photographs by Korena di Roma

Single-leg amputee Paul Martin lifts his sponsored child—born without arms—at the 60-kilometer point near Field's Hill. Martin completed the race in 10 hours and 30 minutes.

For months I’ve been preparing to be in South Africa to see Team World Vision run the Comrades Marathon, and I admit that I had no idea what to expect. But of all the possible outcomes, seeing all 18 team members cross the finish line before the 12-hour cutoff was unforgettable.

South Africa: In Durban, Comrades Marathon and the World Cup Take Center Stage

 
National Geographic Digital Media's Korena Di Roma will be traveling to South Africa to report on the Comrades Marathon, the start of the World Cup, and World Vision's humanitarian efforts in the country. Follow her dispatches here. Pictured: A Team World Vision training run in Durban; photograph by Andrea Peer/World Vision

I’m at the hotel in Durban, South Africa, a seaside city that’s buzzing with the energy of both the Comrades Marathon and the World Cup. Since stepping into the South African Airways boarding area at JFK, I’ve been wondering what decorated walls, magazine covers, and complimentary packets of airline toothpaste before the World Cup came to South Africa. Writing from a hotel across the street from the Comrades finish line and within sight of the city’s nautical Moses Mabhida Stadium, I’m thrilled to be here to witness it all.  

South Africa: The World's Oldest Ultramarathon Meets the World Cup

National Geographic Digital Media's Korena Di Roma will be traveling to South Africa to report on the Comrades Marathon, the start of the World Cup, and World Vision's humanitarian efforts in the country. Follow her dispatches here.

It’s been called the greatest footrace on Earth—56 miles through the brutal, hilly terrain between two South African cities. It’s a race that rivets the sports-loving country each year, and this spring it will take place for the 85th time just two weeks before the inaugural match of the 2010 World Cup.

The Comrades Marathon began in 1921 as a living memorial to South Africans who fought in World War I. That year, 34 runners took on the course between Pietermaritzburg and the coastal city of Durban. Today it’s the world’s oldest ultramarathon and, with nearly 17,000 runners set to participate, it’s also the world’s largest.

Copper Canyon Ultramarathon: Secrets of the World's Greatest Runners (Hint: It's Not the Shoes)

How about running 47 miles in shoe-melting heat with just tire rubber strapped to your feet? A top American ultramarathoner ventures deep into Mexico’s Copper Canyons to learn the secrets of the Tarahumara, the world’s greatest runners.

Text and photographs by Will Harlan

Last March, I journeyed deep into the Copper Canyons of northwest Mexico to run with the indigenous Tarahumara, widely regarded as the world’s greatest endurance athletes. Made famous recently by Christopher McDougall’s bestselling book Born to Run, the Tarahumara scratch a living out of barren, rocky soil, growing ancient varieties of corn and beans. Most live in caves and tiny huts scattered throughout four monstrous, river-carved chasms—each deeper than the Grand Canyon. Through steep canyons and blistering heat, they run—wearing hand-made sandals called huaraches, which consist of used tire rubber wrapped to their feet.

How do Tarahumara run for hundreds of miles in such primitive footwear? To Nike-clad runners like myself, the answer was painfully simple: they just do it. Barefoot Tarahumara children build calluses and foot strength from an early age on the rocky, rugged canyon trails. They rarely get injured, thanks to their running lifestyle and efficient biomechanics.

Meet the Adventurers of the Year: Ultra Runner Diane Van Deren

Going the Distance: Ultra Runner Diane Van Deren

On February 15, 2009, a dozen runners toed the starting line of the Yukon Arctic Ultra, a 430-miler across frozen tundra in the dead of winter. With 30-below temperatures and seven-hour windows of daylight, it’s said to be the toughest race in the world. Not a single woman had ever completed it. But, then, there is no woman like Diane Van Deren.

Twelve years ago Van Deren, a former pro tennis player, had a kiwi-size chunk of her brain removed to treat epileptic seizures. The lobectomy was successful, but since then she has noticed a strange side effect: She can run without pause for hours. Read the story and view images >>

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Last week we announced the 2009 Adventurers of the Year, selected for their extraordinary achievements in exploration, conservation, action sports, and humanitarian work. Now, for the first time ever, you can vote for the Readers' Choice Adventurer of the Year. To help you get to know them, we are going to highlight a different adventurer daily. You can only vote once, so make sure to check out each adventurers' profile, video, and photo gallery, before firing up our voting machine.

Adventure Town Poughkeepsie?

Move over, New Paltz, Poughkeepsie is making its way onto the adventure town map. After 35 years of dormancy, Poughkeepsie’s now-complete railroad bridge opens up a new playground for hiking, biking, and taking in the Hudson River Valley, just in time for leaf-peeping season. 

At 212 feet high and 1 ¼ miles long, the Walkway Over the Hudson is also the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge and will eventually connect 25 miles of rail trails on either side of the Hudson. Some residents celebrated the opening of the bridge with a Rooftops to Tree Tops 5K Run yesterday, sponsored by the Mid-Hudson Runners Club.

So you missed the race? Find a 5K in your area, check out runnersworld.com, a comprehensive race search engine where you can search by location, distance, size, type, name, and date range. Or click through runningintheusa.com or runtheplanet.com. —Michelle Faber

See our top 100 adventure towns here. 

Barefoot Running: Vibram Wants Your Digits

Text by Christian Camerota

There's a budding idea that running shoes may be tricking our feet, and that sometimes training barefoot is a better option.

Since 2001, a growing amount of research suggests that the various airs and bars and gels found in running shoes may actually be overinsulating our feet from the rigors of our strides, leading us into injuries. Thick soles, especially, teach us to strike heel first, a movement that can put exceptional strain and pressure on knees and joints.

In response to this movement, Vibram has developed the FiveFingers, a shoe that is part aquasock, part minimalist, toe-holed foot tire, and all about the barefoot running craze. The Italian company has been around a long time, since 1935 in fact, when its founder and namesake Vitale Bramani developed the world's first set of rubber soles for mountaineering boots, but the FiveFingers marks their first complete underfoot foray.

With a quick-drying, machine-washable fabric upper and a performance rubber compound that yields great grip and feel, the FiveFingers is meant to protect your peds while preserving the benefits of barefooted bliss: landing on the balls of your feet (which are natural shock absorbers and lessen injury) and allowing the soles of your feet to conform to the ground beneath (meaning better footing and a better sense of the terrain).

At anywhere from 5.3 to 6.6 ounces in a men's size 42 (about a size 10.5 in the U.S.), the footwear is light, malleable, and, frankly, makes you look like a hip frog with brightly camouflaged feet. Incidentally, because of the distinct toe slots, people who are web-footed can't join the FiveFingers fun. But treehuggers will be pleased to know that all the materials used in the footwear are vegan-friendly, and parkour participants may find these kicks quite handy while wall-climbing. It just depends on whether or not you're willing to pay $75-85 for the feeling of wearing nothing at all.

Wired magazine has a great analysis on the mechanics of running in the FiveFingers here.

And RunnersWorld has a great look into barefoot running in general here.

And Random House just published Christopher McDougall's book, Born to Run, a study of the history and intricacies of long-distance galloping.