Hi Zak. I find that running up and jogging down does work. I have a quiet hill track that i run in summer. Its not too steep (probably a 1 in 10 gradient) and I try to run for 300m and lay a marker there. Then run reps up it. I can only usually manage 10 or 12 at about two min per km pace at the start of the summer and by the autumn its double that.

It then improves my running (aerobically) when I go back to the roads in autumn/winter.

Hi Zak.  I'm not sure if there are better training methods but I have started running quite regularly in my local park which has a couple of killer hills in it and I certainly found that it has been beneficial to my strength & endurance.  I recently ran a 10k race which was flat apart from quite a steep hill at 7k.  Lots of people were giving up and walking but I managed to keep going, which I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to do a few months ago.  I only run the hills at a normal pace but it inevitably raises your heart rate so I imagine it must have a similar effect to interval training.

Having read up about hill training all articles seem to factor around hill training will increase speed rather than endurance and tend to suggest sprinting up a hill and jogging back down it, however would it be beneficial to me (someone who wants to just build endurance and strength) to just normally run up and down a long steep hill. I have a hill thats got a steep gradient and would take about 2 minutes to run up about two miles away from my home so i was considering jogging there (warm-up) running up and down until im shattered and then as a warm down doing the jog home. Do you think this would be helpful to my training or has anyone got any advice or suggestions of better training methods?