Weekly Summary – 146 Miles in 14 runs. Another super solid week of building. 3 solid workout days, including a 28-miler, some hills, and a great fartlek. Very excited to head to Quito next week for my first “rust buster” race of the season! Make sure you follow that adventure on social media (see below) and here on the blog. 23 weeks to the Trials.

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews). And, of course, don’t forget to check out STRIVE’s 2016 Programs. You can come do service work and train with me in Peru or Kenya and for 2016, 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!

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Lunes, 31 de Agosto, 2015 – 10am: Tired and ran late. Nice morning, cloudy so not too hot. Ran past the big bridge south of Alexandria and back. Felt pretty decent by the end. Total run 14M+ in 1h41.

XT: Hip/back strength

5pm: Easy run solo out/back on MV north. Super hot, 90+ and sunny. Felt the heat on this one. Total run 10k in 46’.

XT: Core, 12’.

Martes, 1 de Septiembre, 2015 – 10am: Hills this morning. Did 10km moderate in about 40’ then stopped and did full drills and a couple strides. Did 12x short hills (about 12-15 sec) at max effort with full recovery. Felt very good and really pushed on the last few. Really good to turn the legs over much quicker than normal. Form felt great.

After, jogged ~1M to road loop and did 4km progression in 12’19, in 3’16, 3’10, 3’00, 2’53. Felt 100x better than last week and ran faster and farther. Great little pickup on muscularly tired legs.

Then ran to the gym for leg strength.

Finished with 2M very easy cool-down to costco to get hommus. Very long workout overall in terms of time.

Total run 15M+.

1km (3’15.7) 3’15.7
2km (3’09.6) 6’25.3
3km (3’00.3) 9’25.6
4km (2’53.9) 12’19.5

XT: Legs at the gym. 3 sets of [15x step ups, 20x overhead lunge, 24x dynamic lung, 12x squat (bar)]. Still no weight other than bar for squats to get muscularly used to these again.

4pm: Ran into DC to meet Mar at the E St. Cinema to watch “Meru” which was super awesome. Run felt okay, but very tired and not enough time between runs as I didn’t finish my morning workout until after 1pm. Also super hot ~95F which was brutal. Total run 5M in 35’.

Miércoles, 2 de Septiembre, 2015 – 9:30am: Easy run, a bit sore muscularly from yesterday. Quite slow especially at first. Took a while to get moving. Warm, in the mid 80s. Ran Matt’s loop + C&O. Total run 12M+ in 1h30.

XT: Back/Hip strength.

5pm: Easy shakeout first 2k very slow with Mar and then solo quicker on grass barefoot for 5km. Felt good. Total run 5.5M in 39’.

Jueves, 3 de Septiembre, 2015 – 7am: Long run today. Continuing the progression of the last few weeks. Got up early this time to avoid the heat (or as much of it as possible). Below 70F when I headed out which felt quite cool. Very light wind.

Ran on MV north loop. Got splits every 5km from Garmin.

First 20km was moderate again and I purposefully ran it a bit slower than last week, after I think I felt “too good.” I tried to keep it around 3’40/km for the most part (18’30/5k) and that felt pretty reasonable. This brought me to 20k in 73’30 (about a minute slower than last week’s run).

From there, I went into pickup number one. Again, I wanted to be careful not to be too quick too early and so I really progressed into this interval, running like 3’25, 3’22, 3’20 for the first 3k. This still felt quite tough and I was pessimistic at that point about whether I’d be able to finish the whole 45km. But slowing back down felt surprisingly very good and I was also surprised to see that I was running quicker than I had at the start, and ran that 5km in 18’08, coming to 30k in 1’48’23, about 30 seconds slower than last week. I also took a gel during this 5k, around 27km.

But the last 15km was much stronger than last week. Again, instead of making a big gear shift, I gradually accelerated over this last section, running 17’25 to 35k (2’05’48) and then 16’46 to 40k (2’22’34). I couldn’t quite hold that pace after 40km and slowed but not a ton (17’30 last 5k) to come to 45km in 2’40’04. Went through the marathon in 2’29’high.

Overall, a super strong workout. Very glad to make it all the way through. Definitely my best long run yet, but still room to improve in the latter stages. Still, these are making me very strong and it’s hard to believe that I was in the hospital just 18 days ago. Since that, this has been a very solid block of training given that I was starting from quite little running over the summer. Still 23 weeks/163 days until the Trials, so we’ve got lots of time.

Total run 28M, 45km, in 2’40’04 (3’33/km)

Splits
5 km (18’30.0) 18’30.0
10 km (18’41.0) 37’11.0
15 km (18’02.0) 55’13.0
20 km (18’17.0) 1’13’30.0
25 km (16’45.0) 1’30’15.0
30 km (18’08.0) 1’48’23.0
35 km (17’25.0) 2’05’48.0
40 km (16’46.0) 2’22’34.0 (Marathon ~ 2’29’50)
45 km (17’30.0) 2’40’04.0

6:30pm: Very slow shakeout around fields. Really bad stomach cramps, legs didn’t actually feel that bad, surprisingly. Just had to run so slow because I felt so awful in the stomach. Total run 5km, 3M+ in 25’.

XT: OFF.

Viernes, 3 de Septiembre, 2015 – 10am: Slept late and long. Very tired after a long day yesterday. Very slow run this morning on Matt’s loop + C&O. Also quite hot, upper 80s-90s already. Total run 12M+ in 1h31.

XT: Back/Hip strength

4pm: Another very easy run. Super hot again in the 90s. Ran MV and then to the fields and about 2km barefoot. Felt okay. Total run 8M+ in 62’.

Sábado, 4 de Septiembre, 2015 – 9am: Slept a long time again. Ran Matt’s loop and then C&O. Nice morning – not too hot, only around 80F and cloudy for a good portion, which was nice. Started out quite sluggish but felt a lot better by the end. ~5’00->4’00/km overall. Total run 13M++ in 1h35.

XT: Back/Hip strength

4:30pm: Easy run around CC and then to fields. Barefoot for about 4km with some strides at the end. Felt pretty good. Total run 7M in 50’.

XT: Hips.

Domingo, 6 de Septiembre, 2015 – 7am: Early workout today. Continuing the progression of fartleks after last week. Goal was 6-8x [1km on/1km off] and then 2x [500m on/500m off]. Goal paces were around 105-110% of MP (2’50-3’00/km) and then around 90% for the “off” km.

Again, did the entire run continuously, with 5km easy around CC in 20’15 and then right into the first “on” rep. Ran the workout on CC loop so I could get intermediate splits and tracked it all on Garmin.

Tried to progress through the workout as always. Started off feeling a bit rusty on the slowest rep (2’59) and then got faster for the next 3 until I was running 2’54-57 for the remainder. The recovery was pretty consistent at 3’28-3’33/km, which felt quite good. It was probably a bit misleading, as it might have been 30sec or a minute at 4’00 or slower and then the rest a good bit quicker once I caught my breath, but the average was quite consistent

Made it through 8x and then did the last 500s a bit more focused, again trying to focus on accelerating through each interval. These were good and I ran 1’24 and 1’23, which is not bad for me at the end of a continuous 23km run.

The total fartlek was 18km in 57’52 (3’12.8/km) – actually a tiny bit slower than last weeks, but 4km longer and longer individual reps, so this was definitely a stronger workout. The avg on pac was 2’55.8/km and the average “off” was 3’30.0/km. Overall, felt very strong and very pleased to be able to finish well in this one.

Finished with about 1 mile very easy to the gym for leg circuit.

Total run 15M+.

Splits
5 km (20’15.0) 20’15.0
6 km (2’59.1) 23’14.1
7 km (3’30.7) 26’44.8
8 km (2’58.1) 29’42.9
9 km (3’29.8) 33’12.7
10 km (2’56.8) 36’09.5
11 km (3’29.7) 39’39.2
12 km (2’57.5) 42’36.7
13 km (3’34.4) 46’11.1
14 km (2’55.8) 49’06.9
15 km (3’28.6) 52’35.5
16 km (2’55.2) 55’30.7
17 km (3’31.8) 59’02.5
18 km (2’54.3) 1’01’56.8
19 km (3’29.5) 1’05’26.3
20 km (2’57.3) 1’08’23.6
21 km (3’33.1) 1’11’56.7
21.5 km (1’24.7) 1’13’21.4
22 km (1’42.7) 1’15’04.1
22.5 km (1’23.1) 1’16’27.2
23 km (1’40.0) 1’18’07.2

XT: Legs at the gym. 3 sets of [15x step ups, 20x overhead lunge, 24x dynamic lung, 12x squat (bar)]. Still no weight other than bar for squats to get muscularly used to these again.

4pm: Very easy shakeout to the fields, 3km barefoot, and then finished at costco. Total run 5km, 3M+ in 24’.