Weekly Summary – 152 miles in 14 runs. A fantastic week with a victory at the Rock N Roll Philadelphia 5K and one of the best long workouts of my career on Wednesday (2x25km). In phenomenal shape already with more work to come. Less than 8 weeks to Worlds!

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews). And, of course, don’t forget to check out STRIVE’s 2017 Programs! You can come do service work and train with me in Peru or Kenya and for 2017, we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even a 10-day trip 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 Septiembre, 2016 – Sparknotes: 8km easy, 8x short hills with full recovery, 6km fartlek in 18’27 with 1’ @ 2’45-3’00/km, 1’ @ 3’15-20/km.

10am: Slept very well and long after a long weekend. Very light workout this morning just to get the legs moving a bit. Ran out/back easy on MVN and then stopped and grabbed flats and headed over to f scott hill. Did drills and a few strides in the field and then 8x short hills in flats. These felt surprisingly good and I was recovering quicker than the last couple sessions (again, using 120 bpm HR as recovery marker). Could have done more but wanted this to be very conservative.

Jogged over to 1k loop and did 6 laps with 1’ quick, 1’ moderate by feel. Felt surprisingly good. Got quicker each lap. Quickest pace I saw was about 2’45 but laps are weird because some had more fast minutes than others. Last lap had like 500m at fast pace just to finish quick.

Short cool down after 2M+.

Total run 13M+.

Splits
1 km 3’09.5 (3’09.5) 156
2 km 6’16.2 (3’06.7) 166
3 km 9’23.7 (3’07.5) 169
4 km 12’26.1 (3’02.4) 171
5 km 15’30.7 (3’04.6) 173
6 km 18’27.4 (2’56.7) 175

XT: Back/hips

4:30pm: Easy run on Potomac Park loop. Felt good – didn’t feel this morning’s run at all. Finished quicker 4’10s with no problem. Good. Total run 10M+ in 72’.

XT: P90x.

Martes, 13 de Septiembre, 2016 – 8am: Ran Matt’s loop with the actual Matt (for part). Met him at the airport field and ran nice and easy to Georgetown where he peeled off and then ran solo back. Tacked on 1km loop around CC. Warm by the end ~80F and sunny so a bit hot in trackies, long sleeve, jacket. Total run 11M++ in 1h21.

XT: Back/hips

4pm: Easy shakeout around CC on grass loop. Short this afternoon with a big one tomorrow. Warm in the upper 80s and sunny, so a bit sluggish at first but felt better as the run progressed. Did 4x strides on the grass which felt good and then jogged home. Total run 4M++ in 31’.

XT: Hips

Miercoles, 14 de Septiembre, 2016 – Sparknotes: Special Block. 6am: 25km (15.5M) in 1’22’33 (5’19/M, 3’18.1/km). 10am: 25km (15.5M) on treadmill at 1% incline in 1’22’04 (5’17/M, 3’17.0/km). Minimal fueling between runs. Absurd. Surprised myself on this one.

4:15am wake up, one cup black coffee (SB via), one nature valley bar, handful animal crackers, ~12oz nuun.

6am warm up 1km, drills, 2x short accelerations.

6:20am start run. On MNV 5k loop. Temp 70F, very light wind. In clifton (size 9). Shorts/t-shirt.

Nuun every 5k, 1 gel @ 15k.

Purposefully started off quite conservatively after those last few long runs at the end of the last block that felt way too hard. Didn’t look at splits at all for first 10km other than 5k split. Just kept the effort super under control, focused on staying relaxed, breathing, etc. Did a very good job mentally of breaking up this whole day into manageable chunks. I was never thinking more than 1-2km at a time. Instead of thinking that I had 46km to go at 4k, I just thought “well, I am 100% sure I can make it to 5K at this pace.” That was all.

The first 3 laps effort all felt exactly the same and the pace increased 10-15s/5K on each one. The HR was surprisingly low. I knew it would often take some time to get up in the beginning, but I was extremely surprised to see it from 10k on and still see it below 160 bpm. There have been several long runs where I was running 3’30-40 pace and had HR in the low 160s. I really cannot explain this other than the fact that the effort felt extremely comfortable and perhaps I have just gotten much more efficient at running this pace. Another thought is that it was quite a bit cooler this morning (only about 70F and cloudy and pre-dawn) and it’s possible that that could have made a very significant different in perception of effort.

Anyway, I never really had any doubt that I would finish this section, but I wasn’t really thinking about the whole 25k until the last few minutes. I was always just thinking about getting through the next 1km or to the end of that 5k section. No acceleration or kick at all, just finished at the same pace/effort as the rest of the run.

Jogged very short back to the house for short ethio, stretching, and then the waiting game.

Unit Pace HR
5 km 16’50.0 (16’50.0) 152
10 km 33’25.0 (16’35.0) 155
15 km 49’47.0 (16’22.0) 157
20 km 1’06’12.0 (16’25.0) 155 – ~69’50 at HM
25 km 1’22’33.0 (16’21.0) 158

Avg 16’30, 3’18/km

8:15am Between sessions, I consumed:

1 nature valley bar
1L nuun
10 pretzels
Probably a bit more nuun as well

Not a ton of calories, but my stomach wasn’t super ready for real food. I was very thirsty (even if 70F felt cool, I was still sweating a humongous amount) and so I drank a lot both immediately after the morning run and in the two hours between. My body did not feel as bad as I expected it in this interim. Not sure if that’s because the morning really was a bit easier than other special blocks or if I just haven’t done a workout like this in a while. Either way, I felt very ready to go at 10am. I was mostly antsy to get things over with.

10am: warm up 1km easy, drills, 2x short accelerations. On treadmill at 1% inc. Box fan for cooling. Temp 72F inside. Nuun every 5km. In new cliftons (size 9.5)

I did this rep on the treadmill as the temperature outside had climbed steadily and it was supposed to be 90F+ by mid day. We’re not trying to do super hot and hard efforts just yet.

I warmed up on the treadmill 1km and then did drills and 2x strides. I had a bottle of nuun and a bottle of gatorade (which has much more CHO in case I felt like I was really bonking) on the machine in addition to 3 gels, of which I planned to take 2 at 5k and 15k.

I had the screen covered and so I couldn’t see the pace or how far I was running. As I ramped up the speed, I increased until it felt like the right pace and then checked and it was about 3’20/km (at 1% incline). From here, I kept the screen covered and would simply increase the speed if I felt like it. I split my watch every 5k, but otherwise tried to focus on making it through the current minute or so.

I got the pace to a point where I felt like I was working hard enough that I didn’t feel comfortable increasing it anymore by about 6-7km and I held this pace steady until maybe 21km. This must have been about 3’16-17/km based on splits but I didn’t know what it was at the time. I did see that my HR was significantly higher (in the mid 160s) than in the morning, but I knew that I could run for well over an hour at this HR, so I was confident that as long as it stayed in this range, I would be fine.

Again, I did a great job of compartmentalizing each 5km and while there were periods where I had to really focus to stay in the moment, I found myself very committed to the idea that this was going to be uncomfortable but I would make my way to the finish. Finally, after passing 20km, I decided I would try to push the last 4km. This was very tough and took a lot of will to choose to increase the perceived effort at this point as I was already very tired and suffering a great deal. But I knew that – as I often told my students this summer – as bad as I felt, I had more left than I thought I did. I brought the pace down to maybe 3’10-12 which felt very challenging, but I was able to hang on to the end to run 1’22’04, about 30 seconds faster than the morning.

Overall, this went absurdly well. I was feeling a bit tired going into this workout due to travel and emotional strain last weekend and then some very big mileage days earlier this week. Not to mention that this is my third very hard, long effort in 10 days now. I was honestly hoping to be at or slightly faster than this workout last year, where I ran 1h25/1h24. To run 5 minutes faster overall is way more than I could have asked for.

The best part is that while this was hard, it felt appropriate. I was able to finish both runs without extreme duress, without the super-awful, panicky depleted feeling I have had after some runs (e.g. 5-sept). I honestly did not feel as bad as I expected in the aftermath.

I am now extremely excited to continue this progression and to race the marathon next month and Doha after that. Last year, I ran faster in my fall marathon than I did in this workout, so the concept of a similar pattern (I.e. running sub 3’18/km for a “training marathon”) is extremely promising. For now though, just rest and refueling.

Run #2 Splits:
5 km 16’37.0 (16’37.0) 155 (Gel #1)
10 km 33’06.0 (16’29.0) 164
15 km 49’28.0 (16’22.0) 165 (Gel #2)
20 km 1’05’49.0 (16’21.0) 168 – ~69’25 at HM
25 km 1’22’04.0 (16’15.0) 173

Avg 16’25, 3’17.0/km

PM: OFF – lazy, brain-dead day. Walked to the grocery store and back in 95F heat and somehow survived. Early to bed around 9pm.

Jueves, 15 de Septiembre, 2016 – 10am: Slept for almost 12 hours last night. Quite sore this morning from yesterday’s effort. Ran very slow on Matt’s loop. Cool, around 72F and cloudy. Ran by feel and quite slow, first 5M in 41’, gradually loosening up to ~4’30-40/km. Total run 11M in 88

XT: Back/hips

5pm: Ran later on MVN out/back. Felt surprisingly good – infiintely better than the morning. Cooler again, in the low 70s and cloudy. Amazing how cool that feels now! In track pants/jacket/long sleeve! Ran like 31’ out, 27’ back feeling very smooth. Total run 8M in 58’.

XT: P90x.

Viernes, 16 de Septiembre, 2016 – 9am: Slept well again and ran easy on Matt’s loop. First 2M slow with Mariana and then quicker solo. Felt surprisingly good again. Saw a great blue heron like 2 ft away on the towpath which was pretty amazing. And it hadn’t even left after I did my out/back and returned. After that, I ran into a kid with a St. Olaf jersey who asked me if I knew Paul Timm and then told me “you look familiar from instagram.” Ha! Small world. Most of the run around 4’05-4’20/km which felt very comfy. Cooler again this morning, under 70F and cloudy! Good run. Total 12M+ in 1h25.

XT: Back/hips

5:30pm: Ran later after taking the train from DC to Philly. Always more pleasant than flying! Ran from Petr and Angela’s apartment down to the Rocky steps which is where the race finishes tomorrow and then ran the whole race course (plus a bit). Seems pretty fair. Mostly flat. A mean little climb in the last 200m or so up to the art museum but otherwise nothing too scary. Jogged back to the house and then did 4x strides in tracers which felt surprisingly good. Legs felt really fast. Nice. Total run 6M++ in 45’.

XT: Hips.

Sabado, 17 de Septiembre, 2016 – Sparknotes: Rock n Roll Philadelphia 5K. 1st place, 15’19 (3’03/km). Very comfortable win. Surprised how easy this pace felt despite 150+ miles this week and HUGE workout 48 hours before. Feel like I could run 4x of these with a bit more taper/focus. Long cooldown.

6:30am: Full writeup to come
Total run 15.5M

Splits:
Unit HR
1 km 3’06.9 (3’06.9) 162
2 km 6’09.3 (3’02.4) 172
3 km 9’09.5 (3’00.2) 175
4 km 12’11.4 (3’01.9) 176
5 km 15’14.2 (3’02.8) 176
5.04 km 15’19.5 (0’05.3) 175

XT: Legs outside (no gym and no weights). 3 sets of everything. Quite tired.

5pm: Lots of walking this afternoon down to city center and back, probably 2 hours total, with a great big lunch at reading terminal market. Came back and ran very easy shakeout on the river bike-path. Super intense section of “The Hour I First Believed” (Wally Lamb) audiobook which is about the 1999 Columbine shooting. Serious emotional roller-coaster out there. Finished with ethio, etc. Total run 6.5M in 50’.

Domingo, 18 de septiembre, 2016 – 7:30am: Still in Philly – very tired this morning, could have slept a lot longer, but wanted to run early to spend the day with Mariana’s family. Woke up at 7am and left just after 7:30am. That’s about as efficient as I get.

Ran down to the RnR Philly half which was going on this morning. Made it to the 5k mark just in time to see the leaders go by and then jogged backwards along the race course until it looked like people were running about my pace. Hopped in and ran the remainder of the course. A big chunk of it was on the river which has a nice bike path on either side, so I ran on that part (mostly on grass shoulder) instead of literally in the race. Felt pretty bad for a while. Had some stomach distress and was grateful for frequent port-a-johns. Super muggy and really dehydrated. Ended up grabbing a few cups of water/gatorade at one of the aid stations which seemed to help. Cut off the course before the finish and did a little loop around the start area before heading back. Felt much better by the end but still quite tired. Total run 14M- in 1h44.

XT: Back/hips

4:30pm: Ran out/back on river bike path. Felt 1000x better than the morning. Running close to 4’30/km out the door and then 4’0x-4’1x the rest of the run quite comfortably. A bit of a twinge in my right calf/hamstring at some point but went away quick enough. Finished at the big grassy area and did 7x strides which felt good just not great footing. Total run 8.5M.

XT: Core.