Tyler’s Training: Week of March 10, 2014

Weekly Summary – 148 miles in 15 runs. Two great workouts including a huge 25 mile long run at 5’27 pace on Sunday in the heat. A few more big weeks and then time to taper! 5 Weeks to Boston!!!

Lunes, 10 Marzo, 2014 – 9am: Back in Quito, very easy 5M shakeout. Felt okay, better than expected. Total run 5M+.

4pm: Easy run around the park. Felt better than the morning. Total run 10M+ in 76’.

XT: Core, 15’.

Martes , 11 Marzo, 2014 – 9am: Slept well. Easy run around the park, a bit quicker at the end. Finished at the market. Total run 11M+ in 89’.

5pm: Ran easy again. Felt fine. Finished at the gym and jogged back. Total 11M+ in 85’.

XT: Upper body at the gym. Felt strong.

Miercoles, 12 Marzo, 2014 – 9am: Easy pre-workout shakeout. Felt good. Total run 3M+.

1pm: Easy warmup 5km and then into a light fartlek. Plan was to run 1’ on/1’ off for about 6-8km, with the “on” pace starting around MP and working down to ~10k pace and the off pace being moderate.

Felt very good. Ran a lot quicker than I expected, mostly because the “off” was much quicker (3’40-50). Got splits every 1km which were a bit uneven since it depended how many on/offs per km. Ended up running 26’26 for 8km (5M-), which is almost an average of marathon pace. Very good at this altitude.

After the fartlek, jogged 1km to the track and did 8x200m with 200m very easy jog recovery. These weren’t supposed to be super fast, just quicker than I’ve been running to get the legs turning over. Hadn’t touched this system in a while, so it felt a bit rusty and very fast. I was surprised how hard it was to run 29.x, but I guess that comes with the territory of these 150+ mile weeks and 25 mile long runs…

Cooled down short to the gym to do leg circuits. A long workout overall, but very strong.

Total run 15M+.

Splits:
8km of 1’ on @ 3’15-2’55/1’ off @ 3’40-3’50
3’24.1
6’50.4 (3’26.3)
10’03.4 (3’12.9)
13’22.4 (3’18.9)
16’44.5 (3’22.1)
19’57.3 (3’12.9)
23’16.5 (3’19.0)
26’26.8 (3’10.3)

8×200: 33.0, 33.8, 33.4, 31.8, 29.9, 32.8, 30.3, 29.0

6pm: Very easy shakeout around the park. Total run 4M+.

XT: Legs at the gym. A bit tired from all the work before.

Jueves, 13 Marzo, 2014 – 9am: Ran easy longer this morning down to the south to do some shopping. Felt fine. Nice and slow for the most part. Good time on feet. Total run 15M++ in 2hr.

5pm: Easy run around the park. Felt fine. Total run 12km+, 7M+++ in 60’.

XT: Hips

Viernes, 14 Marzo, 2014 – 5am: Very early run before heading to the airport to pick up Mariana. Felt good. Total run 8M in 60’.

2pm: Made it to Atacames on the coast of Ecuador. Scouted out some roads and loops for Sunday’s long tempo. Felt very good, running 4’00 pace without even trying. Actively holding back. Total run 20km, 12M++ in 80’.

6pm: Ran with Mariana very easy around town. Finished with drills, strides, and then 400m and 600m at MP (79/1’57). Total run 5M+.

XT: Legs

Sabado, 15 Marzo, 2014 – 10am: Ran solo around Atacames. Felt very good again. Holding back in terms of pace and still running around 4’20-30. Total run 10M+ in 70’.

5pm: Very easy shakeout with Mariana. Total run 5km, 3M+.

XT: Hips

Domingo, 16 Marzo, 2014 – 7am: Today was the last full distance workout and probably the hardest workout of the whole buildup. The idea was to run 40km (24.9 miles or about 8 minutes short of a full marathon) at a very good pace (somewhere between 93-98% of goal pace). The result would be 40km at what would be a good approximation of finishing ability, given that this workout was done in the middle of a very big week, not tapered, etc.

I woke up at 4am, had breakfast of some bread, Nutella, and banana with black coffee. Left around 6:30am for a very easy 4km jog on the loop I’d be using. I’d taken a the previous couple days to find this loop which was mostly flat with one small hill and just about 4km long. I’d run the loop 10x and have Mariana stay at one end for Gatorade and water once per lap. I’d be running with my garmin so I’d have a decent sense of pace.

I did some drills and a few strides and then headed off. It was unfortunately quite clear – the two mornings before it had been cloudy and cool, but even at 7am, it was already getting warm. I tried to remain as relaxed and calm for as long as possible. Just letting the loops go by and taking Gatorade and dumping water on my head every 13 minutes or so.

I was very consistent in the first 20km, if a bit quick – all 5ks between 16’27 and 16’41. I was feeling good, but I could tell the heat was getting worse. By about 15 miles (24km), I started to feel very, very hot and my legs were starting to cramp. I think I ran one km at about 3’40 and had to kind of jolt myself back into it.

At that point, I still had about 10 miles to go and it wasn’t getting any cooler. I made sure to really douse myself with water each lap, but it only lasted so long. I started to slow down a lot (17’21 for 25-30km) and just could not make my legs turn over any faster. At 32km (20 miles), passed in 1’47’37, I felt my stride really start to lock up and it was all I could do to just keep moving.

They say that 20 miles is the halfway point of the marathon in terms of effort, and I’d probably agree with that based on this. The last 5 miles were pretty excrutiating. It was probably in the upper 70s/low 80s F at that point and my body was cramping and overheating like crazy. The last two 5ks were the slowest (17’34/17’55) to bring me into 40km in 2’15’48 (5’27.8/mile or 3’23.7/km avg).

This was a pretty huge effort and, despite dying pretty hard in the last 15km, I felt very pleased with the effort. If I’d continued running at that pace, I would have passed the marathon in 2’23’15 – certainly a good effort for a training run at the end of a 150 mile week. Do I believe that this could predict my current marathon ability? Who knows… Prediction is always hard, especially about the future (I think that’s a Yogi Bera-ism). I do know I could certainly have run much faster if it hadn’t been 85F for the last hour (yes, that’s how hot it turned out to be), but this was also a much flatter course than I will encounter in Boston (where it could also be 85F!)

So, a great workout, but I won’t let it change my goals or ideas about my own fitness. I am glad that I’m in good shape and healthy. Now it’s time to recover from this and hit a few more great workouts before heading back to Beantown in a few weeks!

Splits
5k: 16’35
10k: 33’16 (16’41)
15k: 49’47 (16’31) (10 miles: 53’24)
20k: 66’14 (16’27) (HM: 1’09’52)
25k: 1’22’58 (16’44)
30k: 1’40’19 (17’21) (20 miles: 1’47’37)
35k: 1’57’53 (17’34)
40km: 2’15’48 (17’55)