Weekly Summary – 109 miles in 14 runs – First bigger week where I really felt like I’ve got my legs back under me post Time To Fly 50K. Two great workouts and solid race at the Quito Heroes 10K on Sunday.  Excited for these last few weeks of the season – less than 3 to go!

Don’t forget, 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, 30 de Abril, 2018 – 10am: Slept late again. Need to get on the earlier schedule! Ran up to the metro and 10k loop up there. Still a bit wet, but sunny this morning so not too bad. Legs felt pretty good after yesterday’s off afternoon, so ran down eloy after leaving the park and a half lap to the track for about 13km in an hour. Stopped and did 6x strides on the track and then 200m in 32.2. A bit crowded as it’s a holiday here but managed to work around everyone. Easy home after. Total run 16km+ in 74’.

XT: Toes

5pm: Easy clockwork double around the park. Ran in the CarbonX prototype again and felt really good out the door. Interestingly, I didn’t love this shoe when I wore it on the track last Tuesday for 250s. Maybe it’s not meant to run that fast? But was running 4’0x out the door which is quite quick for a PM run up here. 1 big lap in 15’20 and then to the track 8km in 33’0x. Stopped and did 4x strides which felt great and then home. Screwed up my timing on strides so had it running on my walking recovery and not on strides and lost about 2’ oops. Total run 10km++ in 41’.

XT: Single leg squats – did 7x on R leg and and then only 3-4 on the L leg as my knee was starting to complain.

Martes, 1 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 8x 1K @ 3’04.6 avg, 2’ rec (carolina bike path).

6:50am: Ran down to La Carolina for track this AM as the estadio was closed since it’s a holiday. Met up with the gang and Franklin at Cruz del Papa and did a shared warmup w/ my guys and the amatuer group. Carried my flats the whole time. About 30’ total of jogging including the jog from home and lots of drills as usual.

Workout was 8x1K and we did this on the bike path as opposed to the track which was already quite crowded (the bike path is marked every 100m and is about 3.5km around the park). We would just use the first 2km out/back since after that there was construction in the 3rd km.

I ran with the Jojoy brothers since Miki and JL weren’t there. The reps weren’t supposed to be super quick, fairly relaxed and easing into things. So we ran the first one (net down) in 3’03 and felt very comfy. 2’ jog was plenty. We then ran the next 1K also net down which still felt fine (3’05).

The next two reps were both net up and were slower (3’07, 3’04). After that we decided to do the last 4x just on that first 1K out/back as the second K was along the main road and we got a lot of bus smog. Yuck. 3’02 down, 3’06 back up. Felt pretty tired at this point and thought about just stopping but did one more a bit harder (3’01) and then relaxed on the last rep (3’09 – up) to not overdo it.

Overall, a great session as the first longer sustained running I’ve done since the 50K. It’ll be fun to test the wheels on Sunday and see how things go. I think I’m going to get completely destroyed is the answer, especially as the course apparently has at least two large hills, and every stud in the Andes is going to show up. But we’ll see.

Cooled down short and very slow with the boys on the infield and then jogged home. Total run 19km.

Splits:
1 km 3’03.0 (3’03.0) 156 (down)
rec 4’56.0 (1’53.0) 133
1 km 8’01.0 (3’05.0) 162 (down)
rec 9’58.0 (1’57.0) 138
1 km 13’05.0 (3’07.0) 164 (up)
rec 14’59.0 (1’54.0) 138
1 km 18’03.0 (3’04.0) 166 (up)
rec 19’57.0 (1’54.0) 145
1 km 22’59.0 (3’02.0) 163 (down)
rec 24’58.0 (1’59.0) 144
1 km 28’04.0 (3’06.0) 164 (up)
rec 30’01.0 (1’57.0) 143
1 km 33’02.0 (3’01.0) 163 (down)
rec 35’06.0 (2’04.0) 140
1 km 38’15.0 (3’09.0) 159 (up)

5pm: Rainy clockwork shakeout. Stayed off the grass because everything was soaked. Legs felt okay and energy was good, just some stomach discomfort but no biggie. 1 (short) big lap in 15’44 and then to the track, 8km in 35’20ish. Stopped and did 4x strides which felt good and then finished up around the track to head home via Portugal. Rain had stopped and some really nice light to the north by the time I was on the track. Lovely day. Total run 10km+ in 43’.

XT: Toes

Miercoles, 2 Mayo, 2018 – 11:40am: Ran late again w/ a busy morning, nice to run in the mid day sun but skews my day all kind of messed up. Ran around the carolina 3 big laps in 16’23, 15’49, 15’14. Legs felt pretty good once I got moving. Stopped at the track and did 6x strides and 200m in 31.9. Finished to Inaquito to get breakfast and groceries. Total run 16km+ in 69’.

5pm: Clockwork shakeout around the park. No rain this afternoon. Legs felt pretty good out the door. 1 big lap in 15’38 and to the track, 8km in 34’. 4x strides on the track and then home. Total run 10km++ in 43’.

XT: Toes

Jueves, 3 Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 8x400m @ 67.2 avg (200m jog in 1’15 avg).

7am: Almost didn’t make it out of bed this morning. Really, really tired this morning and only b/c Mar was getting up early and turning lights on and making noise did I decide to drag my ass out of bed.

Jogged down to the track and met up with the group shortly after 7am. Lovely morning and felt okay once I got up and had some coffee. Waited a bit and then the usual warmup with drills, about 15’ of jogging – for some reason much quicker this morning, about 4’30->4’00 when we usually run more like 5’30-4’30. A couple of strides (ran in the HOKA race 119 shoe again as I’ll probably run the 10K on Saturday in that).

Workout was written as 12x400m @ ~66 w/ 60-80sec jog (200m). This seemed like a lot 3 days before a race, especially since I only did 2km of work at about that pace last week, so more than double that seemed aggressive. I decided I would shoot for only 8x which would be 3200m of work and seemed to be a reasonable adjustment from the week before.

I ran w/ Jose Luis and Miki and Erik and we were quite consistent, starting around 67s and working down to 66s in the first 4x. These felt pretty fast to me. I haven’t done much at this pace recently and so it was definitely a bit of a shock to the system to start out that quick.

We traded off leads and I didn’t feel too bad but was glad to only be doing 8x. The rest was quite short and so the last 4 were much harder as we were in a lot more aerobic trouble at that point. I lost some time on 5 and 6 but the last 2x were the quickest which was nice.

Definitely gassed aerobically but legs didn’t feel too bad and within a couple minutes I felt okay. One thing worth noting is that beside feeling wrecked when I woke up I also had some pretty serious GI distress (rhymes with “tire, see ya”) so I think my body just wasn’t 100% today for whatever reason.

Overall, then, I’m glad I kept it short and simple. A good tuneup and some good quicker running w/o putting too much strain on the body.

Jogged short around the track and then home. Total run 13km.

Time Split HR
400 m 1’07.4 (1’07.4) 148
200 m 2’26.1 (1’18.7) 139
400 m 3’33.9 (1’07.8) 154
200 m 4’45.8 (1’11.9) 146
400 m 5’52.7 (1’06.9) 157
200 m 7’03.6 (1’10.9) 151
400 m 8’10.3 (1’06.7) 159
200 m 9’27.1 (1’16.8) 152
400 m 10’35.0 (1’07.9) 158
200 m 11’50.7 (1’15.7) 153
400 m 12’59.0 (1’08.3) 159
200 m 14’11.8 (1’12.8) 154
400 m 15’18.1 (1’06.3) 161
200 m 16’39.8 (1’21.7) 154
400 m 17’46.2 (1’06.4) 160

4:30pm: Ran a bit later than planned as a HUGE thunderstorm/hailstorm blew through around 3pm. Insane amounts of rain/wind/hail, so much so that there were big white piles of pebble sized hail all over the place when I went out. The park was soaked and flooded so stuck to the path for the most part. 1 (shortened) big loop in 15’18, still dodging puddles and getting my feet soaked from mallin at a few spots. To the track w/ 8km in 34’0x and then did strides on the west side as the right side was super flooded (if you ever wanted evidence that the carolina park track is lopsided!). Jogged home. Total run 10km++ in 43’.

XT: Toes.

Viernes, 4 de Mayo, 2018 – 9am: Happy birthday to me. I’m old.

Ran easy down to la Carolina and 2 big laps (16’12, 15’29) and then to the track. Beautiful morning. Park was surprisingly dry after yesterday’s deluge. Did 6x strides and 200m in 32.5 at the track. Over-dressed a bit (added a windbreaker over the normal longsleeve) as I’m easing into the heat adaptation for VCM. Felt a bit tired but okay. Total run 12km+ in 51’30.

XT: Toes

4:30pm: Ran down to the park – rainstorm lasted late today, so still drizzling as I left. Planned to meet up with Calum Neff who’s in town, so just ran little loops up and down shyris as that’s where we’d planned to meet. Ran in the carbon X again and legs felt great. Maybe I’ll try these for the race on Sunday. Made it to the track 8km in 32’30 and then did 4x strides. Finally found Calum just before the last stride so did that and then jogged back to my place together. Total run 10km in 40’30.

XT: Toes

Sabado, 5 de Mayo, 2018 – 10am: Slept late and ran late solo around the park. Lovely morning and shorter run today w/ the race tomorrow. 1 big loop in 15’44 and then to the track, 4x strides and 200m in 33.0. Ran out and over to Colegio Eloy Alfaro to pick up my number to finish. Total run 8.4km in 36’.

4:30pm: Easy short run after the rain storm w/ race day tomorrow. Park a bit wet but not bad. Easy loop around the park, 4km to the track in 17’xx and then stopped and did 4x strides. Legs felt good on these. Finished back up the hill all the way home. Total run 5.6km in 24’36.

XT: Toes

Domingo, 6 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: AM: Quito Heroes 10K, 10th? 32’59 (30’16 conversion), 16’45/16’14. PM: 10x200m @ 33-30 w/ 1’15 jog rec.

6am: Early 4am wakeup call this morning for the 7am gun for Nuestros Heroes 10K. Had some coffee and animal crackers and then took an uber to the start of the point to point course around 5:40a. Had Mariana there which was nice so was able to leave my stuff w/ her and warm up on the course. First few km are very tough with a steep downhill to start for about 400m and then a series of 3 very steep and long hills which top out around 4km. I jogged up the one (and then ended up taking a wrong turn so thought I was still on the course but wasn’t) and then back down. I was running almost 1’/km slower on the way up than down at the same effort.

Got back and changed into flats (decided to race in the carbonX prototype) and did drills and a few strides before jogging up to the start area. Glad I did as it was a shit-show up there. There was no separate entrance to the very front of the start line, so I had to go probably 200m back and snake my way through a mass of like 5000 people in order to get to the line. Took a few minutes and I was worried I wasn’t going to make it but finally found myself on the line along with Miki, Isra, Jose Luis, Segundo Jami, Kirui – who looked to be the lone Kenyan), and others.

Finally, the gun was off and so were we. I was extremely surprised to see how slow we ran the first 500m or so. I had decided I was actively not going to look at my watch for the first 4km or so (over the biggest hills on the course), as I knew the splits would be crazy uneven and I wanted to just run by effort. Still, I felt like I was absolutely jogging down that hill and found myself a few meters in front of the lead pack.

As we crossed the little bridge and headed up the first monster of a hill, I’d settled in and let the pack catch up and they pushed ahead a bit going up the hill. Much to my dismay, we took a left turn (that I’d missed on my warmup) which took us up an ever steeper street and elongated this first hill. I was still right in the back of the lead pack and working hard but felt okay.

The course flattens out for a bit at that point and I was able to catch my breath and tuck right into the middle of the pack (must have been about 20 guys at that point), before we began the second climb up onto the Panecillo before heading through old town. I still felt good and was maintaining my effort but was losing ground on the pack as they crushed the hill. Isra was at the very front pushing but I told myself to just maintain contact and I’d easily catch back up as soon as we crested.

And I did. As we came on the relatively flat stretch through old town, I was again in the front and pushing the pace. I knew these guys were stronger than me on these hills at this altitude, so I wanted to keep the pace honest between the uphill sections. Finally, we began the last climb up towards the Basilica. Again, the pack surged around and ahead of me and I found myself a few meters back. And again, I told myself not to panic as I knew the course was much gentler after this.

So, as we crested the last really significant hill on the course, I was a few seconds back as I’d been on the previous 2 and not worried. But as I cruised down the otherside of the hill, catching a few runners already, the lead pack seemed to maintain its distance. Now, it seemed like Miguel was at the front pushing the pace. I told myself to just be patient and work my way back up.

But it wasn’t happening. I was accelerating but they were accelerating more. By 5K (16’45), they had about 10 seconds on me and I was now in no-man’s land. People were still coming back to me and the pack was diminishing, but I could see a core group of 5 or 6 was pulling away. Given where we were in the race, I felt I was going about as hard as I ought to and settled into a good rhythm of picking off the stragglers.

The course really flattens out by about 8km where we turned left onto Amazonas at La Carolina – a stretch I know extremely well – and I was duking it out with another runner at that point. The last long straight stretch on Nacionas Unidas is deceptively long and slightly uphill and I just had very little left at this point to respond. I knew I only had a few minutes of running left, but just couldn’t dig down for that far-out push.

It seemed interminable but we finally turned left onto 6 and then made the quick turn into the stadium. The guy I’d been fighting with had a couple seconds on me which I thought I’d be able to get w/ a big acceleration in the last 100m+ on the track, but as we came through, I saw the finish line was only like 50m away and I ran out of real estate.

I finished in 32’59 (16’14 second 5K) and I believe I was 10th overall (in the money!).

This was a very good effort and definitely the fastest 10k I’ve run at this altitude on such a tough course. Daniels converts it to a 30’16 which would be a great sea-level race time on a course as challenging as this one.

Hung around w/ the boys for a while (Miki crushed it and got 2nd in 31’40) and then headed out to do a long cooldown. Ciclopaseo day, so ran northbound 5km out and then back. Nice progression starting out slow ~4’45 as I’d been standing around for almost an hour since finishing, but finished 3’59/3’39 last 2km. Very nice.

Total run 25km.

XT: Toes

2pm: Early PM run as Mariana was going down to the park and it was lovely out so I decided to join her. Starting at the track, did 5km easy in 22’ and then drills, strides. Ran in tracers and did 10x200m w/ 200m+ jog back recovery.

Sunday PM on the track is always a bit of a nightmare as there’s no sense of track ettiquette, so tried not to get frustrated and not worry if the reps were exactly equal as I was constantly swerving around people and dogs and vendors.

So, mostly running by effort and the effort was all fairly even ~32.x pace. The recovery jogs were all about 75 seconds. I ran the penultimate one a bit faster (30.x) and then relaxed into the last one. Legs were a bit tired from the morning but didn’t want to crush anything today, just get in a bit more work and good form/turnover on tired legs.

Finished with easy jog around the infield and then walked around with the girls and had a nice picnic in the park.

Total run 10km++ in 44’.