Quote Originally Posted by BillJ View Post
Phil also once set a problem for his students - assuming a conical hill and all things equal, if you are to get from one side to the other, is it quicker to go over the top, around it, or somewhere in between?

Interestingly the answer is always somewhere in between - how far up the shoulder of the hill depends on how steep it is.

We've done a handful of mountain marathons together and discussed mathematics on the way. Happy Days!
For MMs I've always gone with something like 100m of climb = 1km of flat, so 2km of flat running might be 12 minutes and 1km with 100m climb about the same. It's only ballpark and the terrain makes a huge difference, but it's easy to work out on the fly and add/subtract time as appropriate.