Weekly Summary – 95 miles in 14 runs. A great mini-taper week with a season-opening Victory at the Salinas 10K (30’40) and two solid workouts as well. Less than a week until my return to the indoor oval at the BU Last Chance Meet 5000m. And even bigger announcement coming this week as well, so stay tuned!

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews) and, yes, now I’m even on Strava! And, of course, don’t forget to check out STRIVE’s 2018 Programs – spaces are still available for high schoolers, college interns, and adults! You can come do service work and train with me in Peru or Kenya and for the summer of 2018, we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even 10-day trips for adults and families, so be sure to take a look if you’re interested in an amazing summer experience! Finally, I have a few spots open for athletes looking for custom training plans and online coaching. Check out my site and email me if you’re interested!

 

Lunes, 12 de Febrero, 2018 – 9am: Slept very long and well last night. Woke up later and ran easy around the park. Two big laps in 16’38, 16’26 and then to the track. Stopped and did 6x strides and then 200m in 31.2.

XT: Toe yoga

5pm: Easy clockwork double. Down to the park, 1 lap very slow 17’00 and then quicker to the track 34’. Felt much better second lap, pretty tired to start. Track was stupid crowded again because of carnaval – someone sprayed me with silly string, so did strides on the bike path (4x). Finished easy home. Total run 10km in 45’.

XT: Toe yoga

Martes, 13 de Febrero, 2018 – Sparknotes: 6x[800m @ 2’18 avg, 50-60” jog, 200m @ 30.2 avg, 2’-2’30 jog]

7:15am: Ran from home down to cruz del papa because the stadium was closed. Got there right at 0730 which was meeting time but no one was there – surprise. Everyone finally showed up and warmed up around the park, drills, and then changed into flats and did strides.

Workout today was a nice one – 6 sets of 800/200 with the 800s at around goal 5K pace and the 200s quick. Short rest (50-60”) between the reps and longer rest between the sets (2’-2’30). Had a nice big group for this one.

Led the first rep very comfy and slow in 2’21.7. Wasn’t 100% sure where to stop since the track is 760m in la carolina, so just added 7 seconds from where we passed the lap mark and used that as the stopping point. 60” rest felt decent enough and first 200m very relaxed in 31.9.

Second interval was quicker and felt still quite good (2’18.9). Worked a bit more on the 200m and ran 29.9 without straining at all.

Rep #3 I almost ate shit because a giant wolf-dog was chilling in lane 1 at about the 100m mark and did a bit of deer in headlights before I literally ran into him. Luckily he didn’t freak out and bite me but I lost a lot of momentum and had to work to catch back up to the group. Still ran faster (2’17.7) and 30.1 on the 200m.

Next two reps both felt very good and was the real meat of the workout – 2’16.7/2’17.0 and 29.8/29.8. No dog collisions.

Tried to run harder on the last rep but I really just need to chill out on these last intervals because every time I try to run with Micky et al, I end up going out in like 63 and then eating shit. Second slowest of the day (2’19.6) despite really going for it and not feeling too bad going into it. At least ran the last 200m quickest of the day in 29.5.

Avg 800m was 2’18 and avg 200m was 30.2. This honestly would have been a pretty good sea level, so to run it at 9300 ft is great.

Cooled down very slow around the park. Got sprayed with a lot of shaving cream after because it’s carnaval. Also Micky couldn’t get into his car for like 15 minutes because his key is janky as hell.

Total run 17km

Splits
800 m (2’21.7) 151
200 m (0’31.9) 159
800 m (2’18.9) 158
200 m (0’29.9) 161
800 m (2’17.7) 162
200 m (0’30.1) 167
800 m (2’16.8) 162
200 m (0’29.8) 170
800 m (2’17.0) 160
200 m (0’29.8) 168
800 m (2’19.6) 159
200 m (0’29.5) 171

5pm: Easy shakeout around the park, 1 big lap (16’30) and then to the track for strides (4x) and then jogged to old town to finish at Bandido. Nice evening and took it real chill after the morning session. Total run 10km+++ in 49’

Miercoles, 14 de Febrero, 2018 – 9am: Slept later and ran later. Easy down to the park, 1 big lap in 16’22 and then to the track (34’10). Stopped and did 6x strides and 200m in 30.x. Felt okay overall but want to take it easy these next few days with the race on Saturday. Easy home. Total run 10km in 43’.

XT: Toe yoga

5pm: Easy shorter PM shakeout as it’s race week! Down to the park and just big lap to the track. Felt pretty decent after a slow km. Stopped at the track and did 4x strides which felt good. Ran home after. Total run 6.5km in 28’.

Jueves, 15 de Febrero, 2018 – Sparknotes: 12x200m @ 31.1 avg (200m rec in 60-80”)

7am: Easy jog to the track, met up with the gang and nice 20’ warmup there (27’ total), drills, strides.

Workout today was light: 12x200m with 200m jog with the race on Saturday. Had a nice big crew running this one, even with Micky gone for PanAm XC. Profe said 30-32 and that’s exactly what we did. First two were the slowest (31.9/32.1) and then the rest were all 31.2 or faster. Quite consistent actually with the last 10 all between 30.5 and 31.2.

This was a nice speed session but for me at least, quite heavily limited by the aerobic end of things since 60-75 seconds is quite short recovery for me at 9,300 ft after a 30.x 200m. We took slightly longer rest after #8 (since that was the mid point for those doing 16x200m who weren’t racing this weekend), which was nice as then the rest got even shorter (58sec on the last 2!). Anyway, a really nice session since the aerobic limitation kept me from really pushing too hard. I tried very hard not to strain or race those who were running quite a bit faster, especially at the end, but just kept it super consistent and did exactly what I came out to do.

Legs felt good on the cooldown, short. Made it home shortly after 9am which is pretty efficient given how long some of these workouts take.

Total run 14km in 1h06.

Time Split
200 m 0’31.9 (0’31.9)
400 m 1’50.8 (1’18.9)
600 m 2’22.9 (0’32.1)
800 m 3’43.0 (1’20.1)
1000 m 4’13.9 (0’30.9)
1200 m 5’28.6 (1’14.7)
1400 m 5’59.0 (0’30.4)
1600 m 7’12.3 (1’13.3)
1800 m 7’43.5 (0’31.2)
2000 m 8’58.7 (1’15.2)
2200 m 9’29.9 (0’31.2)
2400 m 10’42.0 (1’12.1)
2600 m 11’13.2 (0’31.2)
2800 m 12’20.8 (1’07.6)
3000 m 12’51.6 (0’30.8)
3200 m 14’40.8 (1’49.2)
3400 m 15’11.6 (0’30.8)
3600 km 16’20.5 (1’08.9)
3800 km 0’16’51.2 (0’30.7)
4000 km 0’17’49.7 (0’58.5)
4200 km 0’18’20.8 (0’31.1)
4400 km 0’19’19.6 (0’58.8)
4600 km 0’19’50.5 (0’30.9)

XT: Toe yoga

3:30pm: Ran around the airport since we had several hours to kill when our flight was delayed – surprise! Nice to have a travel partner as I just left my stuff with Mariana and went out of security with just my phone and passport. Ran down to the hotel which had a big flatish field next to it about 500m around and ran some nice laps there. Nice to be able to get in a good shakeout on grass <1km from the airport terminal! Felt surprisingly decent and was actively trying to run slower but still running 4’10-20. Part of this is we’re a bit lower (7000 ft maybe?) and part of it is just the legs are feeling a bit of a drop in mileage these couple days. Good sign for the weekend! Very easy tomorrow. 4x strides in the hotel parking lot to finish up. Total run 6.2km in 26’.

Viernes, 16 de Febrero, 2018 – 9am: Slept later after a longish day of travel here to Salinas! Grey morning with drizzle and clouds, still like 80F though so hard to complain. Tried to run the race course today which ended up being kind of a clusterf*ck. Went well for about 3km until I realized that the course was going into the airforce base and the guys at the gate didn’t even seem to know there’s a race tomorrow. I had to talk my way in (as I actually wanted to end up at the base to get my number, but didn’t realize how most of the course went through it), but then ran around in circles trying to find the packet pickup. It had said 8am pickup and it was maybe 9:20 when I finally found a little tent where I was told they were “almost ready – come back in 5 minutes”. Finally got my chip, shirt, etc. and then tried to continue running on the course. There was one piece which was TOTALLY flooded – i.e. like 12” of water over 50 ft of road with swamp on both sides. I really hoped we wouldn’t have to run through that (and they’d tell me later they’d rerouted us which added 190m to the course due to this).

Finally, found a road which I thought was the end of the course but turned out to be more like 3k-5k and ran there before turning around. It was pouring at this point and I had my phone for navigation and I was worried it was going to get destroyed by water, so I just wanted to get back to the hostel. Total run 10km+ in 44’.

4:20pm: Easy shakeout around town. Day ended up being beautiful after a brutally rainy morning. Ran easy along the start of the course and then loops around town before heading down to the Chocolatera to get some photos as the sun was going down. Lovely. A bunch of strides in flats. Total run 5km in 21’.

Sabado, 17 de Febrero, 2018 – Sparknotes: Salinas 10K – 1st, 30’40 (31’10 for 10.19km), 3’04/km. Totally solo, won by 1+ minute. Good rust buster!

Our race was set to go off at 7am. As normal, I started my warmup around 50 minutes before the gun and was doing my final strides at 6:55am (after a 4am wakeup call). Unfortunately, my two-year racing hiatus from Ecuador had made me forget that “Ecuadorian Time” even applies to road race starts. After more than 30 minutes of standing around, trying to stay loose, doing random drills and strides, we were off at 07:34am.

Oh and I had a moth fly into my eyeball right as I was finishing my warmup which required me to go into the hotel and take out my contact and put it back in. It took a full 30 minutes before I blinked out the last still-twitching moth leg. Ew.

I got off the line well in my first race in 2+ months and quickly found myself isolated (the only bub who’d sprinted off the line last about 400m and then I was alone). At the start, I’d really hoped there’d be a lead pack, but hitting the 1K marker in 3’00, I was already well ahead of the field. It’d be a solo affair.

The course – which I’d tried to run the day before – was lovely paved, fairly flat roads for the first 5km or so and I felt great running 3’00-05/km, very relaxed. I had no idea how we were going to get back as on the map, it looked like the route just went along the beach. And that’s basically what it was. We ran a winding trail with a bunch of steep little hills and ended up on the sand. You know your nightmares where you’re running through sand in some race? That was 7km in.

The garmin read slow due to the trail bit, but I also surely slowed down on the sand until I finally got spit out back onto the road and ran the last 1km to the track. I was misdirected and so ran the wrong way around the track at first only to turn around and run the last 250m or so to finish first in 31’10. I also found out that the course had been re-routed due to flooding from yesterday’s torrential ran and was 190m long (allegedly) which would make the time good for about 30’40. I’ll take it.

Can’t wait to run at BU next weekend where conditions will be a BIT more predictable and controlled. Still a wonderful trip to the coast and a great way to “bust the rust”.

5:45pm: Mariana and I got onto an earlier flight home so got in a nice shakeout before it got dark. Easy around the park w/ 4 very light strides. Total run 6km+ in 28’.

Domingo, 18 de Febrero, 2018 – Sparknotes: 22km in 1h29 (4’04 avg) w/ 60’ easy + 8km in 29’20

9am: Long run Sunday! Easier today after yesterday’s race. Ran solo out/back on the ciclopaseo a bit later since I slept in. Lovely morning. Felt good and ran very comfortably by feel for the first hour (4’10s-20s, even up the big hill) and then picked it up a bit for the last 30 minutes. Really nice route as the big downhill around 11-13km is a good way to get the legs moving and then it’s easier to maintain that once you’re already going at a decent clip. Hoped to do these last 30’ at sub 4’00 pace, but ended up much quicker, 3’40 avg which is good for here in Quito. Last 8km was 29’20 and last 10km was 37’00. Finished out/back on Amazonas so I’d end up at Inaquito to grab some breakfast and do some grocery shopping. Very thirsty after this one – only coffee, no breakfast pre run. Total run 22km in 1h29.

XT: Toe yoga

4:30pm: Easy shakeout around the park, to the track quite slow. 4x strides on the track relaxed and then home quicker 4’30s. Total run 6km+ in 28’.

XT: Toe yoga.