More speed upphill?

[mackar]

I've been commuting on a bike for a couple of years but bought a mountainbike this year to do some more XC riding. I will attend a XC race in Sweden called Cykelvasan, it is a 94km race with quite easy trails but there are a lot of hills so I thought i would train to get more spees upphill but also downhill.

I have a hitt quite close to where I live so I go up and down a couple of times but is there any special tecnique I should use?

Here is the hill where I train, I ususlly do 6-10 rounds

 

[SquareDaff]

Low gear - high cadence - bum on seat. It's more efficient that way. Plus the weight over the rear wheel means it's less likely to slip.