How to Find Hilly Running Routes for Training

Some runners seek hills out, while others avoid them. But hill running, however arduous it might be, is an effective method — whether you’re training for something specific, trying to get the heart rate up, or wanting to build strength and endurance, Many in our Great Runs community ask for routes that are hilly or that include hills. In this article, we show how to find hilly routes on Great Runs, and then present a list of the best hill runs in major North American metro areas.

What Counts as a ‘Hilly’ Run?

There isn’t an industry-defined metric for what constitutes a ‘hill’, or a route that’s ‘hilly’. But generally it refers to an elevation gain over a certain distance. Elevation gain divided by distance indicates the grade, or ‘steepness’ of a run.

The Great Runs rule of thumb for defining a route as ‘hilly’ is if the elevation gain is greater than 100 feet over ~3 miles. But this is a bit subjective. For example, in cities with generally hilly terrain, we might up the ante to tag a route as hilly. In cities with flatter terrain, we’ll relax the metric, and runners might have to do some repeats to get in the hills. 

How to Find Hilly Routes on Great Runs

Many in our Great Runs community ask for routes that are hilly or that include hills So we’ve added ‘Hilly‘ to the ten Route Features that describe a route.  On the Great Runs home page, under ‘Find Great Runs By’, mouse over ‘Route Features’ and click on ‘Hilly’, which will show any route we’ve tagged as hilly. The results are presented by region. Click on the desired region at the top to see hilly routes displayed in alphabetical order, by city. 

Another way to find hilly routes in a particular location is to look at the thumbnails of all routes displayed on the city home page, for example Atlanta. Underneath the title of each route are Route Features and Categories. Look for the routes that show, ‘Hilly’. 

All of the running routes on Great Runs show elevation gain in the ‘Essentials’ box, and all of our route maps show the elevation profile of the route. 

Other Resources for Finding Hilly Routes

For those who really dig hills, Great Runs has compiled a list of The Best Hill Runs in Major Cities. The list is focused on cities in North America. We’ve even included tips on where to find hills in famously flat cities, such as Chicago and Miami!

Hilly Runs to Add to Your Bucket List

Here are a few hill running ‘superlatives’ to add to your running bucket list:

Steepest Paved Roads in the United States: Magnolia Road in Boulder. 13 miles, 3550 foot elevation gain.

Steep Roads and Stairs in Los Angeles. At the east end of Silver Lake Reservoir, get your heart rate with the Mattachine Steps, where your reward for climbing the 163 stairs are views of the reservoir and Hollywood Sign. Also, there are some seriously steep hilly streets east of Silver Lake Reservoir, especially Baxter St. — one of steepest paved roads in the United States. 

Hilly Pittsburgh: As one of the hilliest major cities in the United States, there are few runs that aren’t hilly!. Canton Ave., in the Beechview neighborhood, has a 37% grade — the steepest street in North America! There are also five ‘stair paths’ with 300+ steps sprinkled throughout the city.

Steepest Residential Street in the World. Located in Dunedin, New Zealand, Baldwin St. might only be 0.4 km long but it climbs 70m and features a 35% grade.

Do the Tucson Double! Run the roads up Sentinel Peak and Tumamoc Hill in the same run! This will be 8.6 mile total, 1230 foot gain.

Like Running Stairs? Try the Grouse Grind in Vancouver, Hamilton’s famous 2,600 steps connecting its upper & lower towns, and the stair paths of Quebec City,  In Tromsø, Norway, hike/run the 1300 steps to the summit of Mt. Storsteinen during the ‘Midnight Sun’ period. Spectacular light & views!