Weekly Summary – 85 miles in 10 runs. Weird week w/ jetlag and a little early-season injury scare so this was really only like 5 days of full volume/doubles. All is well though and managed to get in some good work over the weekend.

One more thing – for all my local Greater-Boston readers – if you’re an athlete looking for an exceptional sports-massage therapist who specializes in runners and injury prevention and recovery, go visit Sam Peck at SoarBody Theraputics in Davis Square (Somerville). He’s been crucial to helping me recover from my injury and I wouldn’t have been on the start line this week without him!

Don’t forget, you can follow me day to day on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews) and my daily training log on Strava. Oh and hey if you’re reading this and don’t know about STRIVE, you should probably check ’em out. I lead groups through the mountains of Peru on a  journey of running, service learning, and adventure. If you’re interested, join us next year for the summer of 2019, when we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even 10-day trips for adults and families.

 

Lunes, 17 de Diciembre, 2018 – 10:00: Finally slept through the night! Good long sleep and didn’t get out of bed until like 07:30. Nice. Had a very lazy morning and waited for some rain and snow showers to pass and finally left just before 10:00. Easy today after a big weekend. Ran down to the river and short chuck loop, crossing at JFK. Finished at the track and did 4x strides in 1’23 and then home. Total run 12km+ in 52’.

XT: Heel drops (2×10, both legs)

14:30: Ran earlier to get it in before the dark. Almost at the solstice! Easy out/back on the river. 4km to the track and then 4x strides in 1’24. Ran up Mass Ave after to do some errands (w/ a backpack on w/ a package to drop off, so quite a bit slower). Walked back w/ groceries. Total run 7km++ in 31’.

XT: Toes.

Martes, 18 de Diciembre, 2018 – AM: OFF – big weird lump on my left achilles. Pretty painful upon flexion onto my toes and pretty concerning overall. Even walking up stairs is very painful. Ugh! Taking the day off to try to be smart. Seeing Sam Peck on Thursday.

Miercoles, 19 de Diciembre, 2018 – AM: OFF, lots of time on walking desk, still worried about left achilles. Ugh!

14:15: Felt better and ran in the new HOKA Mach on the science museum loop. Lump is definitely better than yesterday but not 100% yet. Probably being stupid and over eager but that’s my nature I guess. No strides but felt pretty good running and like the Mach. Total run 8km++ in 34’.

XT: Heel drops, toes

Jueves, 20 de Diciembre, 2018 – 11am: Ran late w/ Dave to Davis. Left achilles lump is still there and pretty tender. Ran quite slow and didn’t feel good. Super concerned about this. Planned to run back after massage but — good news and bad news — Sam Peck said it was almost 100% certainly due to the zipper on my tights aggravating it and should be gone in a couple days but also felt worse immediately after the run. So just jogged to T and rode home. Total run 8.5km in 42’.

XT: Heel drops

17:00: Worked out on elliptical to give left achilles some more time to recover. Really just want it to be 100% by the time I get to UIO. Short on time so did light workout w/ like 8’ warmup and then 16x 1’ on, 1’ off, increasing the resistance ever 4 reps. Very hard effort! Really sweaty and got the HR way up. Good! Cooled down just a couple of minutes since we were meeting the VC and Zinnia for dinner. Total ~45’.

Viernes, 21 de Diciembre, 2018 – 09:30: Left achilles finally feels 100% fine today (took some ibuprofen last night and took these last 3 days very light).

Ran very easy w/ David down Mass Ave to drop off a package at the UPS store and then back to the house. Really nice to run together. Headed out solo after that on the river and ran big chuck loop. Legs felt really good especially w/ the gentle warmup and was running much quicker 4’0x down to 3’50s for the majority. Very windy and really fighting the wind at times and never seemed to have a consistent tailwind but that’s how it is. Finished at track for drills, 4x strides, 200m in 33. Total run 18km in 74’.

XT: Heel drops

15:45: 65F today — even if rainy and windy — is pretty miraculous for the winter solstice. Ran in shorts and a light long sleeve which I took off after a few km. Super windy on the chuck but got at least a few km of tailwind at some point as I ran about 3km in the 3’45 range. Legs feeling good w/ the unplanned days off this week. Finished at the track right as the rain was picking up so very light drills and then 4x strides and home. Total run 10km+ in 39’.

XT: Heel drops/toes.

Sabado, 22 de Diciembre, 2018 – Sparknotes: 10km in 33’46 w/ 25x[200m @ 32-34, 200m @ 45-50]

08:00am: Ran over to BU to meet Jon and then worked out on the track before the mini-meet. About 6km total warmup w/ easy running, drills, strides, and then got into it as it was already starting to get a bit crowded.

Goal was to do a bunch of volume w/ short rest at around goal 5km race pace (2’45-50/km). Plan was to do 25-30x 200m and take an easy 200m lap recovery between each. I figured if I did 30 I’d do 2 sets of 15x and so kind of mentally planned to take a break at 15x anyway and then either do 5 or 10 more.

Started out feeling very good and was consistently running 33.x and then 32.x for the first 10x (in my mind I split them into sets of 5, so the first 2 sets). The I told myself I only had one more set before I could take a longer break.

At that point, though, muscularly/mechanically I was starting to feel pretty tired. Aerobically I felt okay but the turnover to run 32-33 wasn’t there anymore and I was suddenly running 33s and a couple 34s w/ the same effort. I got to 15 and decided that taking longer rest wasn’t really going to help since it seemed to be muscular fatigue, not aerobic fatigue, that was limiting me, so I just kept going.

The last 10x were quite hard, a mix of 33-34. Finished w/ 400m “on” since that would bring me to 10km total of work which was only 70.x. I was just muscularly pretty wiped.

(Wore carbon rockets for this btw)

Jogged easy cooldown inside w/ Jon for about 10’ and then packed up and jogged home (long way w/ a fruitless stop at REI) and then got absolutely pummeled by this random acute hail-storm crossing the Smoot bridge at the same time I was. It seriously went from being 55F to freezing, extremely windy, and hailing in like 10 seconds. WTF Boston?

Cool down ended up being about 8km in 38’.

Total run 24km.

1:45p: Short turnaround b/w runs today w/ the beginning of family xmas chaos. Basically had breakfast and a nap and got up and ran again. Did science museum loop finishing at Lolandy’s. Extremely windy on the river and mostly into the wind. Feel like I’ve been running into the wind on every f*cking run this week. Can’t wait to get out of this place. 4 slow strides on the road near their house while trying not to get killed by motor vehicles. Total run 11km in 47’.

Domingo, 23 de Diciembre, 2018 – Sparknotes: 28km in 1h48 w/ last 16km on treadmill (1%) in 55’02 (3’45, 17’32, 17’17, 16’20)

09:00am: Started out easy w/ a loop on the Chuck. Goal was to get some longer time on feet w/ faster running in the second half. Ran short chuck loop from 4’40-> 4’10s and then over to the gym at 91 syd to do some fast running on the treadmill as it was cold AF and I didn’t feel like trying to do more fast running outside. Did light drills before starting.

Goal was to do some running at around 3’30 pace, ideally about 20km which would put me at around 2h00 total. Ended up not having enough time so used the last 5km to progress down a bit (16’20). Had to stop in the middle for a bathroom break. I don’t think I took any gels, just some nuun. Total work was 16km in 55’02. Cooled down short and slow 1km Total run 1h48 for 28km

16:15: Ran from home very easy, first 4km or so solo and then ran w/ Mr C VERY slow ~ 6’30/km for 2.5km or so and then solo again. Dark and cold but nice to run w/ my dad. Finished w/ drills, 4x strides. Total run 10km in 51’.