When I run by myself, I tend to walk up parts of some of the bigger hills on my route to help save my legs so they don't fatigue too quickly.

(Source)
My hills are smaller than these

I never really thought that my quick walk breaks could be having a negative impact on my running until I got smoked on hills this weekend running with the group. The guys were pushing to the tops of the hills like it was no big deal, and I was dying and trying to sneak in walk breaks.

I realized the only way I'm going to improve my endurance on hills is if I start making a better effort to run up the hills on a regular basis.

So on yesterday's 4.5 mile run, I made it my goal to run the entire length of every hill, no matter how slow my overall times were.

Running up all the hills definitely wasn't easy and there were a couple times when I was really tempted to walk, but I didn't. I just kept pushing, putting one foot in front of the other, and I made it to the top of all of them.

And it turns out running up the hills didn't fatigue my legs enough to make a huge difference in my splits on a shorter run. My average pace for the run was 9:13 per mile.

I'm hoping that by training my brain to get used to running up the hills, I'll be able to hang with the guys better during our weekend long runs.