Weekly Summary – 71 miles in 11 runs. A great real taper week. Super low mileage and the legs are feeling great! A solid speed session on the track and one last longer run with the boys. Feeling great. Ready to go. Fired up. Less than a week to go!

If you don’t know about the Road to 50K, check out the announcement post from last week and follow along at Road to 50K site designated to covering the event. And of course, you can follow me day to day on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews) and my daily training log on Strava (GPS included!). Don’t forget to check out STRIVE’s 2018 Programs – we’ve still got a few spaces available for high schoolers, college interns, and adults! You can come do service work and train with me in Peru or Kenya and for the summer of 2018, we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even 10-day trips for adults and families, so be sure to take a look if you’re interested in an amazing summer experience!

 

Lunes, 2 de Abril, 2018 – 9:30am: Slept late after having trouble falling asleep last night. Didn’t get out of bed until after 8am but RHR was way down after yesterday’s big spike, so hopefully that’s just a weird blip.

Having seen the long-term forecast, decided to over-dress a bit these last 11 days for some extra heat adaptation. Wore a thermal long sleeve, light jacket, tights, hat, and gloves. Honestly wasn’t that warm. It was in the 60s probably and cloudy, so really didn’t feel bad.

Did 2 big laps of the park 16’25, 15’14 and the long way to the track. 10.5k in 46’ and then 6x strides which felt quite good, 200m in 32. Easy run home after. No rain this morning and no afternoon run today, so should be able to stay dry. Day 1 of recovery block. Total run 13km+ in 56’.

PM: OFF – rec block day 1.

Martes, 3 de Abril, 2018 – AM: OFF, rec block day 2. Walked down to Greg’s and back but otherwise just hanging around the house. Got a lot of work done, had a good nap. Lots of time and energy.

3pm: Ran down to Migracion office to figure out the exact date of my extension app and then around the park. Legs felt very good right out the door. Over dressed again – 2 longsleeves, jacket, rights, hat/gloves. Nice afternoon – no rain, just a few dark clouds, but mostly really nice. Did 2 big laps of the park in 15’48, 14’44. Legs felt good. HR a bit higher due to over-heating. Finished to the track and then 6x strides, 200m in 32.0. All good. Easy home. Total run 13km++ in 54’.

XT: Toes.

Miercoles, 4 de Abril 2018 – Sparknotes: 4x500m @ 1’32->1’22

8am: Ran down to the track and got in without issue. Ran easy around the grass for a total of 4km warmup in 17’. Stopped and changed into tracers and did drills and 3x strides.

Idea today was basically just to stretch the legs. I like doing this at the end of a rec block. Only 4x500m with the goal to do some running at goal race pace and some surging at the end. Each one surge 100m longer, so first one is 400m at race pace, 100m surge, second is 300m at RP, 200m surge, etc.

Felt extremely good on this. First one felt like I was jogging and went out in 36 for the first 200m. 78-79sec pace feels extremely slow on the track which is a great sign. No trouble surging to 15.x-16/100m pace on the surges. Recovery was easy. No problem.

Finished up and changed back into cliftons and jogged home easy. Total run 9km in 36’.

Splits:
4x500m:
1’31.9 (77/15)
1’28.9 (58/31)
1’27.5 (39/48)
1’22.5 (19/63)

XT: Toes

5pm: Ran with Brittany down to the park. A bit rainy, acted like it was about to stop, and then picked up after a while. Ran a short lap to the track 4km in 19’. Nice to have company and forced to run a lot slower. Felt really good on strides. Absolutely nada leftover from the morning. Great. Ran home solo via portugal and got SOAKED when the trolebus drove through a puddle and threw up a giant tsunami at me. Total run 5.6km in in 26’.

XT: Toes

Jueves, 5 de Abril, 2018 – Sparknotes: 2x 10x 250m @ 41-42 (65-67/400m), 150m @ 40-45 (4’40-5’00/km).

6:45am: Jogged over to the stadium to meet the boys for probably the last group workout before the race next Friday. Normal warmup w/ easy jog, drills, 15’ of jogging.

Workout was 2 sets of 10x 250m/150m. These were supposed to be quick, but the rest wasn’t walking or even super slow jogging, so it was supposed to be relatively continuous.

I felt really good on this one. Obviously the legs are super fresh at this point, but I found myself trying to keep Erik and Miguel from dogging it on the recovery, and on the reps the three of us traded off and were running 41-42 every rep. After rep #10, we took 2’30 walk/jog break which felt excessive. The second 10 definitely felt harder, but I still felt very good and the reps and recovery were both faster. I got dropped on the last 1.5 reps but these guys are way faster than me on the track, so that’s fine with me in a workout like this.

Finished very out of breath as it’s a fairly continuous workout aerobically, but quickly felt pretty much fine after that. Easy cooldown on the field a bit and then home, short. Total run 16km in 67’.

4pm: Easy clockwork shakeout around the park. Mostly clear w/ just a few raindrops. Legs felt fine. No issue from the AM as expected. Lovely. 4x strides, legs didn’t have as much pop as yesterday, but that makes sense. Easy home via portugal. Hit the pool after which felt great. Total run 5km++ in 22’ (4’12 avg).

XT: Toes

Viernes, 6 de Abril, 2018 – 8am: Lovely morning, slept long and well! Ran down to the park and 1 big lap in 16’03 and then short lap to the track. Legs felt good and fresh. Stopped at 8.5km and did 6x strides, 200m in 31. Feeling the taper – real fresh and poppy. No problem. Total run 11km in 46’.

XT: Toes

4:45pm: Ran down to the park. Tried to run as slow as possible and still avg’d 4’20 to the track (4km in 17’xx). Felt as easy as the other day running w/ Brittany at 4’47/km. Legs are ready. Did 4x strides on the track which felt great and then ran home via portugal. Total run 5km in 21’.

XT: Toes

Sabado, 7 de Abril, 2018 – 18km prog run w/ da boys in 63’35 (3’32 avg). 18’23, 17’48, 17’11, 16’55. Great!

9am: A bit of a chaotic morning as always when coordinating with Miki. Wasn’t really sure if we were going to end up meeting up until basically I was in his car. Dude is hard to work with! Good thing he’s such a boss.

Drove down to the Chaquiñan together and then met up with Jose Luis and Marco. Didn’t do any real warmup other than walking to the trailhead and some mobility stuff as we were waiting.

The goal today was to do a continuous run of about 18km at a decent clip. Miki and I had done 16km in 60’ on this trail a couple months ago (about 3’45 avg) and so I was hoping to run a bit quicker than that. I figured an avg in the 3’30s would be very good.

We set off and I was pushing the pace from the start. I didn’t want to fuck around on this one, and while I didn’t want to hammer, I also didn’t want to jog the first few km. We ran 3’47 for the first km which is actually pretty slow as it’s downhill a lot (first 2km actually), so we kept the effort even and ran 3’32, 3’36 for the next 2km. At that point, it’s a long, rolling uphill pretty much all the way to 10km where we turned around. I actively didn’t look at my watch but just tried to keep the effort even and was running 3’30s-40, which is very good uphill.

We turned around at 10km (36’11) as Miki and JL wanted to do 20km and I figured I’d just stop at 18k and jog back. We were cruising on the way back (Miki and I dropped Jose Luis) and ran a couple quicker km on some of the more downhill sections (3’20 and 3’10 12th and 14th km). We came to 15km in 53’22 (17’11 3rd 5K).

The penultimate km was quite slow (3’41) as we had to weave through this area that’s under construction and run out onto a nasty cobble-stoned street for a few hundred meters. But the last km is a smooth downhill and I cruised in at 3’09. The last 5K was 16’55 and the total was 18km in 63’35 (3’32 avg).

This was just about perfect in terms of what I wanted. I got in a great effort, ran way faster than I did last time on this route, and didn’t feel to beat afterward. Perfect effort!

Cooled down the 2km back to the start and then headed back for some pool time with the gang.

Total run 20km+.

Splits
Time Split HR
1.00 km 3’47.0 (3’47.0) 131
2.00 km 7’19.0 (3’32.0) 144
3.00 km 10’55.0 (3’36.0) 158
4.00 km 14’45.0 (3’50.0) 166
5.00 km 18’23.0 (3’38.0) 167 (18’23.0)
6.00 km 21’58.0 (3’35.0) 170
7.00 km 25’28.0 (3’30.0) 169
8.00 km 29’08.0 (3’40.0) 171
9.00 km 32’38.0 (3’30.0) 171
10.00 km 36’11.0 (3’33.0) 171 (17’48.0)
11.00 km 39’46.0 (3’35.0) 171
12.00 km 43’06.0 (3’20.0) 172
13.00 km 46’40.0 (3’34.0) 173
14.00 km 49’50.0 (3’10.0) 172
15.00 km 53’22.0 (3’32.0) 173 (17’11.0)
16.00 km 56’45.0 (3’23.0) 172
17.00 km 1’00’26.0 (3’41.0) 172
18.00 km 1’03’35.0 (3’09.0) 173 (16’55.0 last 5K)

4pm: Easy run around the park. A bit tired from half-day of CHO depletion, but not too bad. Legs not too tired from the AM sessions, which is a good sign. Same route as always w/ 4km to the track in 18’ and then 4x strides and home via portugal. No rain today! Lots of sun this morning. Total run 5km in 22’.

XT: Toes

Domingo, 8 de Abril, 2018 – 9am: Easy run around the park. First night of CHO depletion so felt pretty doot on this one. 2 big laps in 17’34, 17’23. A bit warm as I was over-dressed a bit and the sun came out. Lovely but pretty tired by the time I got to the track b/w being overheated and underfueled. 4x strides only. Finished easy up to 6 de diciembre. Total run 11km in 52’.

XT: Toes

PM: OFF – no PM session today w/ the longer run yesterday and CHO depletion.