Kate Bush was on to something. She knew the impact hill training could have on running performance, so much so that she wrote a song about it. In all honesty I hoped that she and the thousands of other hill training devotees were wrong and that it wouldn’t work. Unfortunately it does.

I say unfortunately because hill training isn’t fun. It makes my muscles scream and my lungs burn. For the past four months though I’ve given it a chance. If I’m not doing a hill session with the running club I run up and down the hill I live on six times. And on my weekend long runs I seek out hills to include.

The results? They’re impressive, to me at least. My average long run pace is down by around 30 seconds per mile since last October. On Satuday I ran an undulating 12 mile route at a faster pace than I did a pancake flat half-marathon last October.

So the good news is that I’m on course for a new half PB but the bad news is that I have to keep running up that hill – because it looks like it works.