Weekly Summary – 96 miles in 6 days (12 runs). A great week despite a LOT of distractions (Christmas, traveling to Quito, and an off-day on the weekend for our New Year’s camping trip). Got in 2 solid efforts in Boston before leaving and then a really fun adventure-y long run in the mountains on Saturday. Can’t wait to get into the next big block here in Quito!

One more thing – for all my local Greater-Boston readers – if you’re an athlete looking for an exceptional sports-massage therapist who specializes in runners and injury prevention and recovery, go visit Sam Peck at SoarBody Theraputics in Davis Square (Somerville). He’s been crucial to helping me recover from my injury and I wouldn’t have been on the start line this week without him!

Don’t forget, you can follow me day to day on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews) and my daily training log on Strava. Oh and hey if you’re reading this and don’t know about STRIVE, you should probably check ’em out. I lead groups through the mountains of Peru on a  journey of running, service learning, and adventure. If you’re interested, join us next year for the summer of 2019, when we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even 10-day trips for adults and families.

 

 

Lunes, 24 de Diciembre, 2018 – 09:45: Ran from VC’s in Concord w/ Mariana. Lovely morning and nice easy miles. Ran out Harrington and saw a HUGE white owl right before Stacy Circle turnoff. Very cool. Looped out on the new bike path and then back the same way. Got mar back for 9km+ and then headed back out solo for a short loop, 4x strides and drills (on road) and back. Total run 13km+ in 60’.

15:30: Easy run solo from VC’s still. Nice to get in a double as I thought I wouldn’t have time today. Out/back on Harrington and short loop. Finished w/ 4x strides, drills. Total run 8km+ in 34’30.

Martes, 25 de Diciembre, 2018 – 11am: Ran very late after sleeping late and driving out to Battle Rd en route to Concord. Started out very easy w/ Mar around 5’00/km out/back from Meriam’s corner for 8km in 39’xx and then ran back to the VC’s from there. Felt really good on this and was running decently quite 3’50s w/o too much effort. Stopped and did 4x strides and drills on road. Total run 18km in 78’.

17:00: Ran on treadmill at my parents’ house since I didn’t have any warm clothes. Felt good and ran quicker from 4’00-> 3’30 or so. Machine is super bouncy but ran at 3%; still felt too easy. Total run 6.5km in 24’.

22:00: Very short warup, 1x stride, 1.609km in 4’27.

Miercoles, 26 de Diciembre, 2018 – Sparknotes (PM): Treadmill (2%) 6km fartlek in 19’09 w/ 1’ @ 3’10-00 / 1’ @ 3’30, last km continuous 2’57.

10:15am: Ran later to try to let it warm up a bit and was up super late w/ Brett/Nire. Ran big, big chuck loop as I was feeling good on the way back and running quicker than I thought (also running in the Mach as my last pair of Cliftons just wore through). A bit windy and chilly but not too bad. Listened to the second act of hamilton for the last 15 min or so after I finished TAL. Stopped at the track and did drills and 4x strides. Total run 19km++ in 78’.

XT: Heel drops (10x each leg)

16:00: Easy run to the bank and then around the neighborhood. Nice sunset view. Stopped at the gym after for some quicker running on the treadmill. Did light drills and then 20’ fartlek w/ 1’ on, 1’ off w/ the off reps at 3’30 and the on reps starting around 3’10 and going to 3’00. Ran the last 1km continuous from 5km (16’12) to 6k (19’09), so 2’57 last K. Felt very good on this surprisingly. Very yellow workout. Easy jog after. Total run 11km.

Jueves, 27 de Diciembre, 2018 – Sparknotes: (Treadmill, 2%) 15km progression run in 50’29 (3’22 avg), 3’45->3’00 (17’26, 16’45, 16’18).

05:30: Very early workout before travel day today. Wanted to get in some decent running long day of travel and then some time for altitude adjustment.

Felt pretty bad from the moment I got up. Definitely catching up on the last few late nights/early mornings and also getting used to higher volume (today I’ll probably be over 200km for the last 7 days which is the highest I’ve been in a while, especially given how busy I’ve been).

Anyway, goal was to do a progression run. I thought best case I’d maybe do 15km-18km going something like 17’30, 16’30, 15’30, especially after how good I felt doing some quicker running last night.

In practice, I felt pretty sluggish but got a decent amount of work in. First 5km felt okay and increased speed from about 3’45->3’25 for 17’26. Definitely still felt harder than I expected but I was hoping it’d feel a bit easier once I started working harder as it had over the weekend. I kind of babied out/had some stomach issues right around the halfway (7km or so) and stopped for about 90 sec and went to the bathroom. I slowed down for 1km to get back into it (from 3’19 to like 3’25).

From there, I did much better mentally. I thought of the last 7km really just like getting to 5K to go and then once I did that I counted down each minute and increased the speed .1 km/h each minute. This was – in theory – much harder as it was getting faster but I did a much better job of staying focused in each minute and letting the effort feel right. I still wasn’t running super fast (the 4km before the last km were 3’25 down to 3’13), but I felt very good about the effort. The last km I increased the speed every 100m or so from 19-20km/h. This felt very good but hard.

Cooled down very short about 1.5km as I was short on time and a big blister on the bottom of my left foot had just popped.

Overall, not a bad session all things considered. Running on this machine at 2% might actually be harder than outside but I’d rather have it that way than vice versa. Definitely had some serious stomach issues in the aftermath so that might have been a factor too. All in all, good longer effort and glad to get in one more hard session before heading to Quito!

Total run 19km.

Splits
5 km 17’26.0 (17’26.0) 158 (17’26.0)
8 km 27’25.0 (9’59.0) 167
9 km 30’44.7 (3’19.7) 169
10 km 34’11.2 (3’26.5) 162 (16’45.2)
11 km 37’36.4 (3’25.2) 167
12 km 40’57.5 (3’21.1) 170
13 km 44’12.2 (3’14.7) 172
14 km 47’26.1 (3’13.9) 175
15 km 50’29.7 (3’03.6) 178 (16’18.5)

15:00: Airport miles in MIA! Easy travel day so far and had a minor delay in MIA which was actually nice as it allowed us time to grab some food for the flight and for me to get in some quick airport miles. Pretty crowded but managed to run at a decent clip w/o killing anyone. Total run was 25’ which I’ll call 5km+ (and which gets me to 200km in the last 7 days!).

Viernes, 28 de Diciembre, 2018 – 10:00am: Made it to Quito (and got through entry w/ no issue despite our visa uncertainty). Really about as quick and smooth as it could go. Left our house in Cambridge around 08:30 and got to our apartment in UIO around 21:30. Our flight ended up arriving on time despite leaving almost an hour late, no line at passport control/customs, and our bags were some of the first ones out. Omar was waiting for us and no traffic, so all in all super painless trip.

Slept well and late and then headed over to meet Greg and Alex at their place (about 100m down the street!) had coffee and then ran w/ all 4 of us over to Carolina. They stopped at the track and I continued on solo (after 1km in about 6’00) and was just so happy and joyful to be here and running and thriving in the sunshine. Running much quicker than I expected given the long day yesterday. Ran 3 big laps 14’42, 14’46, 14’30 then to the track, drills and 4x strides (1’24) and 200m in 31.6. Jogged back easy. Total run 18km in 74’.

XT: Heel drops

14:41: Jogged over to Quicentro to meet Mariana and then back from Old Town (later) solo. Left achilles bugged me a bit so kept it a bit shorter and no strides. Lovely evening though and great fun first day here. Total run 8km++ in 35’.

Sabado, 29 de Diciembre, 2018 – Sparknotes: Long mountain adventure “run” 4h12 full Pichincha Integral route (Rucu 4698m, Ladrillos 4685m, Guagua 4794m). Very hard!

09:00: Big adventure day! Up early w/ Mariana and Alex who were going to climb Rucu Pichincha so I decided to do my long run up there and test out my idea of doing some very long efforts as “time on feet” runs through the mountains. Huge line for the cable car which was the first time I’ve seen that in a while but makes sense given that it’s a holiday weekend. Still got up and got started by 9am.

Also NB had no breakfast, just coffee.

Started out running the first long uphill chunk from cruz loma to the sandy north face of Rucu. This was extremely hard and I was pretty much redlining from the first few steps as I clearly wasn’t good at monitoring my effort and there were some very steep little sections which, at 4200m or so, really sting.

Got to the sandy bit and stopped to change my shirt which I had already sweat through (and now was getting chilled as I was heading into the clouds and it was windy). From there, ran in thermal longsleeve and HOKA rain coat which I would zip or unzip depending on how warm it was.

Jogged and walked the ascent which is very steep up to the saddle below Rucu. From there, it was a scramble on rock to the summit. Made it to the summit at 4698m in about 53’ from the start. Stopped briefly and then descended back to the saddle and began the tricky descent down towards Padre Encantado. Ate a nature valley bar and took some maurten here.

This descent very steep and loose and requires care not to take a bad fall for several minutes. Once I got down, there’s a nice very runnable trail toward Ladrillos.

NB: I’m realizing now looking at the map that I actually summited the wrong middle mountain (Ladrillos vs. Padre Encantado). I guess I still need to do the FULL integral.

Anyway, Ladrillos was mostly runnable until the very last bit which required a nice scramble up a steep rock face of like 5.8-9 climbing for 3m or so. Came down the other side which was much gentler and then headed toward Guagua.

I’d told Mariana that I wanted to do maybe 3h00 or so total and knew that I was already running behind and hitting the Guagua summit would put me way off that mark. I figured their hike would take a while as well, so I felt okay about it, though.

NB Took a caffeine pill somewhere around here.

The trail leading up to Guagua is quite runnable but my legs were feeling extremely tired on the steeper uphills so ended up powerwalking some of that.

Finally, the ascent to Guagua was a real bitch as it is super sandy on the route I took up the north face. Had to traverse over to some rockier terrain for the last push but made it to the summit after about 2h20.

From there, the descent was much easier as once I got off the rock it was easy scree down to the runnable trail. This took me back towards Padre where I got slightly lost and had to bushwhack a bit but finally got on the runnable trail which led me back to the very steep ascent to the Rucu saddle. I ate my last NV bar at this point as I knew I’d need energy for the last big ascent. It was tough but not as hard as I expected given how tricky the descent was. I was lucky to have other people’s footsteps to follow.

Now, it was all downhill. Easy scree descent down to the very runnable last 4km or so. Really enjoyed this bit and was moving well (actually running the whole way) and made it back to Tele after 4h12. Only covered 20km but boy did it feel like more!

Overall, this was a great adventure and a good test of really trying to push for longer and longer periods. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to do more of this in the coming weeks while I’m here!

XT: Heel drops (1×10)

16:45: Easy run solo around la Carolina. Started out very slow as I was pretty sore and tired from the AM but running 4’20s after a bit. 1 big in 16’37 and then to the track, drills and strides (1’23) and 200m in 31.3. Jogged back easy. Total run 8km+ in 35’.

Domingo, 30 de Diciembre, 2018 – OFF: semi-planned day off for block break. Headed out to San Juan de Chimborazo for 2 nights in the mountains to ring in the new year w/ some great friends. Left at 05:30am so no time to run beforehand.

Drove Greg’s giant truck and despite getting lost for an hour or so, we made it there by about 11am. Set up camp right at the cars in a beautiful spot next to a river w/ a beautiful rock wall right behind us. Chilled for a while and then did some climbing w/ Alex including my first ever lead (not false!) climb (on a very short and easy route). Still really scary and fun.

Beautiful hike up the other side of the valley to watch the sunset over Chimborazo which was spectacularly clear. Couldn’t have asked for a better first day here!