Weekly Summary – 141 Miles in 14 runs. Two good workouts, one very solid race. A lot of mileage this week, as I’ll continue to maintain for at least another 10 days or so. This is my last race for a few weeks, as I focus on hitting some big workouts in preparation for the Media Maratón de Portoviejo – a half marathon at sea level on October 13th. I’ve got a race-pace workout coming up on Wednesday and then I’ll head down to Baños de Agua Santa this coming weekend for a long tempo run where I’ll try to get in some faster running at the lower elevation. Should be a big week!

Lunes, 16 Septiembre, 2013 – 10am: Easy moderate run down to the park and 3 big laps. Felt quite good actually, easy pace. Total run, 22km, 13M+++, no time.

5:30pm: Ran easy 6km to the track at la Carolina, did some light drills there and then 2km of 100m stride, 100m cruise, with last 200m quick. Went through 1600m in 5’45 and then last 200m in 29.6. Jogged a bit and then 6km progressive back from easy to quite fast in 22’12 (3’42/km). Felt very good.

Total run 14km, 8M++.

Martes, 17 Septiembre, 2013 – 6am: Early wake up and easy run to the track (6km). Met up with the group and did some drills (basicos) and strides (progresivos). Workout for the group was only 5x1000m with 2’30 rest. Ran them on the bike path (marked every 100m).

Started out with one kid in the group quite slow and felt very easy (3’19). After that, ran the rest solo, as the faster guys were not there. Progressed down on each one. Third one was slower as it w uphill, but last two were good pace at 3’05 and 3’08. Last one was on the track.

Took 5’00 jog and then did 2x500m to end a bit quicker. First one about the same as the last 1000s at 1’34.1. 2’00 jog rest. Last one quicker but felt very good, still quit relaxed in 1’31.6.

Hung around and stretched with the guys after and then jogged back, easy 6km.

Total run 18km+, 11M++.

Splits
5x1000m, 2’30 jog: 3’19.9, 3’15.0, 3’19.1, 3’05.7, 3’08.0.
2x500m, 2’00 jog: 1’34.1, 1’31.6

5:30pm: Left late because of thunderstorms. Easy run to the park and one big lap. Picked up the pace on the way back because I was feeling really good and ran the last 3-4km or so quite fast. Felt good. Total run was 14km 8M+, no time.

Miercoles, 18 Septiembre, 2013 – 10am: Woke up early for a 7am work call and then had a light breakfast before heading out for a workout around 10. Jogged easy to the track 6km and then drills and strides and 200m in about 36.

Workout was neuromuscular today. That is, the point was to run at goal PACE, not goal EFFORT to get the body mechanically used to running at the pace I’ll be trying to run at sea level. This is one of the difficulties of training at altitude; specific work (running close to your race pace) is really split into specific PACE work and specific EFFORT work. The former trains the NEUROMUSCULAR system to become biomechanically efficient at a certain pace, while the latter focuses on developing the AEROBIC system. Pace workouts would focus on a high volume of running at race pace (around 5’00-5’04 per mile for the half marathon, which is my main focus this season) with ample rest, as this pace will feel significantly harder than it would at sea level. The effort workouts would be composed of longer intervals (2-5km) with less rest, or longer continuous runs of 15-25km at close to race EFFORT (according to Daniels’ altitude conversions, this comes out to about 5’25-30 per mile).

So, today’s workout was all about getting in a good amount of volume at goal race pace, broken up into fairly short intervals with plenty of rest. The workout was a ladder, with a total of 12km of work in intervals of 400 to 800m with a few 200s for speed at the end.

The workout started with 3x400m to “warm up” into the workout. These felt quite good and were all in the pace range I was looking for (75-76). After this came one 800m rep and then the intervals would shorten for the remainder of the workout. The 800m was the longest rep and I ran perfectly, splitting 75/75.

The “meat” of the workout came after this, in the form of 10x600m, ideally between 1’52 and 1’54. These were quite tough and I struggled to maintain pace. Part of this was that it was getting extremely windy as I’d started late and clouds were rolling in. I felt like I was constantly running into the wind no matter where I turned. This can be seen in the splits as a few were in the 1’55-57 range, which were probably the gustiest reps.

From here, the reps progressed down. 4x500m in 1’33-1’35, again felt quite tough a my legs were muscularly very tired at this point and I was struggling with the wind. 3x400m in 71-74. Finally, ending with 4x 200m to try to hit that other gear. These were really hard as my legs were pretty much toasted at this point and I still couldn’t figure out where the hell the wind was coming from. I could only muster 31-33.x at this point.

Jogged back after this and was pretty pooped.

This was a very hard workout and I think I learned a few important things from it.

1. These workouts take a LONG time. Door to door, between warmup, cool down, drills, and workout, this took 3 hours. In the future, I need to plan for this and leave much earlier so I don’t end up dealing with the early afternoon super-gusty winds.

2. I need to come into these workouts better rested. I’ve run 130 miles in the last 7 days, with 60 in the last 3. This actually isn’t as much a concern as the fact that the three days leading up to this were: 10km race, 2km of strides + light tempo, 6000m of intervals. Looking at it now on paper, it seems crazy to think that after these three days, I would try the hardest workout of the week. This is why it’s good to have coaches and others to tell me when to hold back a bit. In the future, I think I’ll either have to do my own workouts if I train with the Tuesday/Thursday elite group or just do their workouts (or just go and run easy). I shouldn’t be trying to fit in extra workouts.

Either way, I was glad to just be able to finish, but next week I definitely want to come to this type of workout with more focus and more well rested. This is the first in a series that will hopefully progress up to about 16-20km of work, so there’s a long way to go. Always learning, always improving.

Total run 25km, 15M+.

Splits
3x400m (2’ jog): 74.7, 75.2, 74.9
800m (3’ jog): 2’30.9
5×600 (2’30 jog): 1’55.4, 1’53. 3, 1’54.4, 1’54.7, 1’53.1
5’ jog
5×600 (2’30 jog): 1’57.3, 1’53.2, 1’53.3, 1’52.8, 1’56.0
5’ jog
4x500m (2’ jog): 1’33.3, 1’35. 0, 1’34.4, 1’35.2
3x400m (2’ jog): 74.1, 71.8, 72.0
4x200m (2’ jog): 33.5, 32.4, 31.0, 32.0

5pm: Ran very easy 5km with Maddy and then tacked on around el ejido 7km. Total 12km, 7M++ in about 1hr.

Jueves, 19 Septiembre, 2013 – 10am: Slept late after having to work overnight. Two cups of coffee and then ran. Easy to the park and three big laps. Ran back. Tired but felt okay. Total run 22km, 14M.

4pm: Ran easy solo and then with Maddy slower. Felt fine, good regeneration. Total 12km.

Viernes, 20 Septiembre, 2013 – 11am: Had to work morning, so wasn’t able to get out to run til 11. Ran down amazonas to the Plaza Deportiva where they are having packet pick-up for the race on Sunday. I got there and the guy at the door told me it wasn’t until tomorrow. Oops. Ran around the park and then back. Changed shoes and then did 10x hard short hill sprints with full recovery. Felt very good but tough. Total run 20km, 12M+

5pm: Ran with Maddy very easy up to Itchimbia and then around there for a while. Tacked on solo quicker around Alameda. Beautiful evening. Super clear, all the way to Cayambe. Great night.

Total run 12km, NT.

Sabado, 21 Septiembre, 2013 -11am: Ran to la plaza deportiva to pick up my race packet. Got in and out quickly and then ran back. Easy pace.

Total run 10M+, NT.

5pm: Very easy 5km around el ejido, solo.

Total run 3M+, NT.

Domingo, 22 Septiembre, 2013 – 7am: Quito 10km race today. Woke up around 5am, had a cup of coffee and bread with banana. Just relaxed after that and got some work done. Feeling pretty good and left around 7am to head over to the race.

Streets were pretty quiet as it was Sunday and got to the start in plenty of time for the 8am start. Jogged away from the chaos of the start and headed to La Carolina about 800m away where I had some peace and quiet to do drills and strides. Also did 2x200m in 38.x feeling quit relaxed since I had a lot of time.

Jogged back over to the start around 7:50am and got right into the elite corral. There were a lot of fast dudes, some that I recognized including Dimas – a guy who had come in right in front of me in Ibarra and who I’d chatted with a bunch there. I bounced around for a bit trying to stay loose and then we were serenaded with the Ecuadorian national anthem before a count-down start.

These races all seem to have interesting starts. In this case, a line of police officers had been standing across the start line, and I’d assumed that they were going to move. To my surprise, as the countdown came to 3…2…1… they were still there. They eventually trotted off as all of the elites went off and tried to break through the lines. It was a bit chaotic for a few hundred meters and I almost got taken out from the swerving, but it was all good.

I felt like I was going out quite fast and I could see Dimas (who had said he wanted to run 3’10 pace) WAY out in front of everyone. I was trying to just relax in the first km and after about 500m, I found myself getting swamped by a huge pack of guys (and one legit looking female). I thought about going with them, but it felt way too fast and hung back, probably having been passed by 40 people in a matter of 100m. Still, no one wins a 10km in the first 3 minutes – you can only lose it – so I decided to hang back and work up.

And that’s what I did. That first km was surprisingly slow (3’31), but it was gradually uphill and given the chaos of the start, I just shrugged it off. In retrospect, it’s possible that some of these km markers were off anyways. I just hung where I was and focused on moving up on all the people in front of me who I was sure had gone out too hard.

I quickly did begin to move up and used the flat first 4km or so to pass a lot of people – moving through little packs (the one girl now behind me) and steadily getting quicker with each km (3’31, 3’18, 3’16, 3’14).

At 4km there is a long steady climb for about 2 miles, which is by far the toughest part of the course. I felt quite good and was pretty surprised to see I’d run a 3’47 5th km – yikes! Either that beginning of the hill took way more out of me than I’d thought or the marker was long (probably the latter). However, the next two uphill km were also slow at 3’30 and 3’32 even though I was still moving up.

Just after 7km, we crested the hill and began a STEEP descent down towards the finish line. I felt like I was absolutely flying and could barely keep my legs under me it was so steep. At that point, I had heard someone say I was in 20th and could see about 3-5 guys in the 200m in front of me and was working really hard to move up on them. I knew I could have a strong last 2km, as it was fairly flat, but these on that downhill, I couldn’t make any progress. That km was ridiculously fast and/or short (2’55), coming to 8km at 27’07.

The last were flat and I tried to work my way up to the pack in front of me but managed to catch just one straggler. I finished strongly though, covering the last 2km (didn’t get a 9km split) in 6’30, to come in at 33’38. This was actually a pretty big mile-stone, as 34’10 is 3’25/km pace, which is what my half-marathon “effort” is supposed to be around for this altitude and it’s also the fastest I’ve run up here by over 30 seconds. According to Daniels’ altitude tables, the time is equivalent to 30’46 – which would be my fastest road 10km ever and my 3rd fastest 10km on any surface.

I met Dimas at the finish – who had run 32’30 after his fast start – and cooled down with him. I talked a bunch about training – he races a 10km almost every weekend, including next weekend which is a week before he’ll be running a marathon! Yikes! Anyways, a great guy and invited me to train with him – though he runs daily at 5am before his work, so not sure how I feel about that…

Quick thoughts from the race

1. There were a lot of reasons this could have gone badly. I ran over 140 miles this week. I’ve raced 4 times in 22 days now. It’s been unseasonably hot and cloudless the last few days. I was particularly over tired after a few tough days of work. Basically, I had a lot of reasons that I didn’t have very high expectations and the race still went quite well.

2. I’m still learning how to race up here and how to race on the roads. Hills are killer, overly-fast starts and surges are killer. These things I’ve discovered and am still trying to figure out how to deal with.

3. 33’38 (and 30’46 at sea level) is a big step in the right direction. This is still a heavy training phase and pretty early in the season. I’m pretty pumped.

Splits:
3’31.8
3’18.3 (6’50.1)
3’16.4 (10’06.5)
3’14.6 (13’21.1)
3’47.0 (17’08.1)
3’30.8 (20’38.9)
3’32.9 (24’11.8)
2’55.5 (27’07.3)
6’30.7 (33’38.0 – 16’30 last 5km)

2pm: Today was a pretty big workout day, with a race in the morning and a second workout in the afternoon. This makes up what Canova refers to as a “special block” or, in this case, a “specific block.” The idea is to do two workouts in a single day, with light rest in between them, forcing the body into super-compensation mode and bypassing much longer, though more conservative, training methods.

The idea today was to focus on continuous running, and so the afternoon’s workout was another 10km bout, this one a progression run. The run was to start at a comfortable pace and finish quite fast.

I ran the first 5km to the park and – despite having run a race a few hours earlier – my legs felt decent running at a good clip. I increased the pace every 5’ or so, and came to the park at 5km in 17’54. From there, I ran 5km around the park on the km-marked bike path, trying to increase the pace each kilometer. This part felt quite hard, as I started to feel how tired my legs were and increasing pace made it worse. Still, it did progress down and the second 5km was much faster (17’14), with the last km around 3’10. The 10km total was 35’08. The one problem was that there was a HUGE fire burning in the parque metropolitano in the north part of the city which was wafting all over downtown. I could feel the smokey air as I was runnin and that was not super fun.

I finished at the track and did a few light 200s just to get the legs moving at a higher gear, but it was difficult, since there was some huge children’s event going on on the infield and people were walking all over the place. I jogged back easy for 6km, bringing it to 10 miles for the afternoon and 22 miles for the day, with 20km (12.4M) of quality.

Total run 10M+, NT.