Tyler’s Training, Week of December 9, 2013

Weekly Summary – 98 miles in 6 days (12 runs). First week back at altitude an first week of real training for the 2014 Boston Marathon (click or scroll down for my official announcement/backstory)!! Two very solid starter workouts with a fartlek on Tuesday and a good long-run on Sunday. Getting into the swing again. T-18 Weeks to Boston!

A bit of explanation of the above chart – some people seem to want a quick summary of the week’s training without reading through my melodramatic detailed accounts of every run. So, I’m trying something new this block in that I’ll post a short summary chart (as seen above) before the full training logs. The chart shows my AM workout, PM workout, Quality (miles faster than moderate), total mileage for the day (.01 on the end indicates a double), and cross training (strength work done other than running).

Lunes, 9 Diciembre, 2013 – AM: OFF, Travel. Only slept about 2 hrs.

PM: OFF, Travel. Arrived Lima late.

Martes, 10 Diciembre, 2013 – 10am: Slept super late and well. A few very late nights in the last week. Easy shakeout from Jose and Tanja’s place in Lima. Beautiful day! Ran easy on the Malecon. Total run 5M+ in 38’.

3pm: Light workout today. Ran 5km easy in 24’. Started picking up the pace after 5km and ran down the hill from the malecon to the beach. Once on flat terrain, I started the fartlek portion. Running 2’ on/2’ off with the “on” working from about 3’25/km down to about 3’10/km and the “off” between 3’45/km and 4’00/km. Felt very good running quicker than anything else in the last few weeks, especially given a few very late nights recently. Finished with 60sec very hard. Finished 20km in 1’17, so ran 15km of quality in 53’. A very good first workout. Total run 14M+.

XT: Pushups/Back raises, 10 sets of 30x each

Miercoles, 11 Diciembre, 2013 – 11am: Slept super late after getting in at like 4am. Again, Quito, with the airport shrouded in fog and the re-routing of planes to other airports and the refueling and sitting on the runway for hours in the middle of the night… ugh. Anyways, felt okay. Altitude didn’t feel as bad as I expected after 2+ weeks at sea level. Ran to the park and one big lap. Total run 8M+, NT.

5:30pm: Yes, I had to work today. Ran the same route as the morning felt decent again. Tacked on a bit to round up. Total run 9M, NT.

XT: Core, 7’ mixed.

Jueves, 12 Diciembre, 2013 – 8am: Ran very easy 4km to park with Marco and then walked back. Good talk and a nice easy shakeout after waking up pretty sore. Total run 4km, 2M+.

5pm: Jogged back to the house and then ran to the park and one big loop plus some. Felt pretty good. Easy run. Total run 10M+, NT.

XT: Did Jon’s “Hips Don’t Lie” hip strength/mobility work. Felt good.

Viernes, 13 Diciembre, 2013 – 7:30am: Early run to finish before we started staff interviews. Easy run to the park and one big loop. Felt pretty good. Total run 8M+ in 58’.

6pm: Waited out the rainstorm which came right as I was about to leave. Ran 4.5M easy out and back and then up to the hill by Itchimbia for hill sprints. Wanted to do 5x300m hills today. Stopped and did full drills. First hill was way too steep. On first one totally rigged after 180-200m, so jogged around and found a much nicer (though busier) stretch of road to use. These next ones were the right distance but still super hard. About 5’ walking/jogging rest between each. Very hard, especially given the altitude. Made it through all 5x though. Cooled down about 2km back to the house. Total run 7M.

XT: Legs. All unweighted, working on form. 3 sets of (12x step up, 20x walking lunge, 12x overhead lunge, 12x deep back squat). Form getting good. Time to get to the gym and make these harder.

Sabado, 14 Diciembre, 2013 – 7:30am: Another early morning run before staff interviews all day. Ran very easy 10km to park and back. Felt okay, glutes and thighs a bit sore from all the work yesterday. Total 10k, 6M+ in 50’.

3pm: Ran between interviews, another easy 10km. Felt fine, much better actually. A bit quicker at the end. Total run 10km, 6M+, NT.

XT: Upper body 3 sets of (30x push ups, 20x dips, 5x pull ups, 30x flutter, 5x chin ups, 30x push ups)

Domingo, 15 Diciembre, 2013 – 9:30am: Long run Sunday! First one of the block (and my first real long run since mid-October). No breakfast, just a cup of coffee and relaxed for a couple hours to make sure I was awake.

I was a bit nervous about this since I hadn’t done a long run in so long and I’d be down at sea level in Concord for a while and wasn’t sure how’d it feel to run at a decent pace for a good distance at this altitude (9400ft).

It ended up going way better than I expected. I wanted to run between 4’00 and 4’25/km (6’26 to 7’06/mile) and started out quick if anything. I ran out and back on the ciclopaseo (where they shut down the main road through the city on Sundays). It’s great to be able to run a long out and back with no traffic except other runners and cyclists.

The route is good and rolling for the first 5M or so and then climb up a huge hill by the old airport. I thought that I would be running over 8’00 pace for this point, but ended up keeping it under 7’00 pace which was very good. The turn around was at 13km (about 8M), and so I was running quite quick back down the hill (6’04 10th mile and 1’04’24 though 10M).

From there I felt very good and was feeling very smooth through about 16 or 17M. At that point, I ran back out the other direction through the old town which was extremely hilly. These last 3M were very, very tough going. It was super hilly and I was starting to feel pretty tired. It was also really hot – in the 70s and very sunny. Still, I managed to keep the pace in range and finished 20M in 2’09’16 (6’27/mile, 4’01/km).

A very good first long run. Super pleased with the result give the altitude and the heat. A very good start to the season. I’ll do one more moderate paced long run next week and the start progressing more towards faster long runs as the season goes. Still, super pumped with this and really looking forward to getting back into it!

Total run 20M+ in 2’09’16

Splits
1. 6’42
2. 12’59 – 6’17
3. 19’25 – 6’26
4. 25’48 – 6’23
5. 32’20 – 6’32
6. 38’39 – 6’19
7. 45’36 – 6’57
8. 51’58 – 6’22
9. 58’20 – 6’22
10. 1’04’24 – 6’04
11. 1’10’37 – 6’13
12. 1’16’54 – 6’17
13. 1’23’18 – 6’24
14. 1’29’37 – 6’19
15. 1’36’07 – 6’30
16. 1’42’48 – 6’41
17. 1’49’17 – 6’29
18. 1’56’20 – 7’03
19. 2’02’33 – 6’13
20. 2’09’16 – 6’43

6pm: 5km very easy regeneration around el ejido. Felt good to move a bit. Total run 3M+, NT.

XT: Core, mixed, 8’.

A view from the Ciclopaseo in the north of Quito. The city closes the road to cars and it’s taken over by runners and cyclists! Cotopaxi Volcano (19,347ft) is visible in the left