Hi all, I'm hoping to get someone with experience to clarify a couple points for me as I try to develop my running ability.

First, here in San Diego there is no flat ground to speak of unless it's under a building. Everywhere I run is inevitably going to be a hilly route, but they are long steep hills and not the nice short hills for sprinting up. So far, I've been in the "just go do it" school of thought, thinking that if I can make the times on a hilly run, then it will be that much easier to make good times on the PAST.

What I've begun to worry about, however, is whether always running hills could be detrimental in any way. I know it's gonna be tough to figure out my pace, but I'm looking more into the ability/physical performance side effects. Maybe I should mix in some treadmill work just for the sake of having a flat surface once in awhile?

Also, in trying to figure out my mile time, I've been just dividing my run times by the # of miles (I run 'there and back' type routes so that I go uphill as much as I go downhill). I've, probably naively, assumed that the hills will just average themselves out. Is this an OK assumption, or am I way off?

(A note: I have searched, but not have been able to find any local high schools with publicly accessible running tracks, so that's not looking like a great option)

I would appreciate any advice.
Thanks!

Guard MC goes in depth about the hills and their affect on times in a thread titled "More handy running tips". I would give that a read, you may be surprised at the impact.

Hills are going to train your muscles to work in different ways than if you were running on flat ground and your body will become used to that style of running. So, it may in fact hinder you in the end if you ALWAYS run hills. However, the adjustment from hill running to flat surface running is much easier than vica-versa. Treadmill running is not the IDEAL situation either but, it would probably be helpful to switch your routine up by doing a couple of days on the treadmill per week (2% incline to offset the lack of wind resistance).

NeoKudo,
I agree with SrA Allen's summations. First, running on hills ALL the time will alter your running style because it changes your stride length and foot strike IF you let it. Running uphill makes for shorter, faster strides and you tend to impact more on the forefoot than on flat ground. Running downhill tends to lengthen the stride and often leads to extremely hard impact on the heels with more shock to the knees. The effects are easily mitigated if you run intelligently. Listen to your body, if your shins are killing you on the uphills it is likely a cumulative affect of many steep uphills and running on your toes or the balls of your feet. Find hills that are less steep, try taking shorter steps and land more on your heels than on your toes. If your kness hurt on the downhills, you are likely letting gravity take you down too fast, resulting in an overly long stride with a hard impact on heels that transmits shock to the knees. Lean backward a bit, take shorter steps and maybe look for less steep grades of hill.
I live in a hilly area too. No matter which way I run, I have at least a quarter mile long uphill followed by a quarter mile down hill every mile. On a typical four mile run, I won't find a flat stretch of longer than 200 yards. On my six miler, I get a single flat stretch from about mile 2.2 to mile 3.8. The rest is hills of 400 meters to 1000 meters and of various grades. I haven't suffered any ill affects from this in five years, AS LONG AS I CONTROL THE FOOTSTRIKE AND PACE as described above. If I break those rules, I'll feel the consequences right away with sore shins and knees to remind me to smarten up.

I also agree with SrA Allen that getting on a tradmill a couple days a week might be a good idea just to see how your legs feel.

You are not going to get an accurate 1 mile time by dividing your multiple mile times. Fatigue is a curve getting steeper and steeper the longer the distance, not a straight line. Here is an example. In college my fastest mile on the track was 4:38, my fastest 5K (3.1 miles) on the track was 16:04 and my fastest 10K on the track was 33:25. The paces come out to 4:38 for the mile, 5:11 mile pace for the 5K and 5:25 pace for 10K. That is obviously a steep curve, not a straight line.
The only way you will get a good 1 mile time is to find a flat course or a track. Sorry, but that's how it is. Now, do you really NEED an accurate 1 mile time to train? No, you don't. You can run 1 mile on a hilly route and use that time to base all your interval times on that route. You can run uphill intervals instead of flat ground or the entire course. When you get really fast, you can even run downhill intervals (just be carefull not to go too fast or you will pull a muscle or hurt a knee from the extremely long stride that comes with a fast downhill). You can also run fartleks and never even worry about exact pace. Fartleks allow you to run as fast as you can for any randomly chosen distance (between 50m and 800m) with slow jogs in between sprints.

Also, I agree with SrA Allen that it is pretty easy to go from hill running to flat running. You might be amazed at how much faster you run on flat ground. After my first 6 months of running around my hilly routes, I ran on a flat course and was 40 seconds faster per mile than on my hilly route for the same (if not less) effort.

Anyway, if you are careful, the hills should be an ADVANTAGE, not a disadvantage.

neokudo.. there's no schools nearby with a measured track that you can drive to? almost every high school has a track around their football field.. and a lot of middle schools do too.

Don't know where you are in San Diego but Lake Miramar has 4 miles (8 Miles out and back) of flat running for ya. The miles are even marked

Coronado is also really good. There isn't a hill to speak of and you can run The Strand for 15miles (out and back).

If you are in North County, Cal State San Marcos has a pretty sweet track.

There are places to run on flat ground....but I hear ya. There are plenty of hills here. Not really a bad thing, though. Let me know if you'd like to run/PT sometime. I've pretty much been training solo, so the company would be appreciated.

Thanks GuardMC and SrA_Allen for the tips. That's more information than I could have hoped for! Much appreciated.

Bolden, the problem is that I haven't found a publicly accessible track yet. There's definitely high schools around, but there are lots and lots of high gates and fences in this area. The search continues...

Navetintel, I'll PM you.

Try talking to a school principle or PE teacher to see if he will let you run at pre-arranged times. If you explain your situation, they may help.
I know I tought in Georgia and all the schools allowed people on the track. Here in KY, we just jump the fence...probably get in trouble one day, though.

Tought in Georgia...exactly.

I was hoping nobody would notice the spelling...