A hilly Parkrun - Improving my time?

[Tootsvanoots]

I've been doing a very hilly Parkrun for the last few weeks, and would be interested in your opinions about improving my time. I have always made it in less than 29 mins, but I'd like to get my speed better.

There are a few hills on the circuit and a few bits of flat. I really struggle going up hill. I think I could probably walk faster!

My question is this - should I use the flat bits, and the down hill bits to go really fast (well, relatively fast) and then be happy to go slow up hill. Or should I aim to maintain a consistent speed, and use the flats and downhill bits to recover.

I'm guessing that the best way to improve my hill speed is to keep running up hills, but the question above is about the Parkrun 5k.

[totalbeginner Graduate]

My guess would be try and keep your overall speed consistent and you will find you gradually have a faster time, but I haven't got any experience of running hilly terrain. Is there anywhere local you could do some of your runs on more hilly ground

[Tootsvanoots Graduate in reply to totalbeginner]

Thank you. I managed to knock 1 second off my PB this morning - I did go a little faster down hill, but everyone managed to overtake me again on the ups! I agree that I need to practice more on the hills.