Weekly Summary – 150 miles (240km) in 14 runs! Biggest week I’ve hit in over a year and at 9000+ ft no less. Most importantly, I’m feeling healthy (apart from a cold I caught on Sunday which appears to be mostly gone) and enjoying the process. Some solid workouts this week as well – one more big week in this block!

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 was crucial to helping me recover from my injury during the fall and I wouldn’t be running 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, 14 de Enero, 2019 – 09:30: Sad morning w/ Mar gone but it was beautiful and sunny which made it easier. Ran up to Metropolitano and had a great time romping through the wilderness up there. Didn’t look at my watch until out of the park and was at 4’43 on the way down the hill. Wanted to do a longer single to start pushing mileage a bit so ran down to Carolina and 2 big laps in 15’41, 15’46 and then to the track, stopped at 22km in 1h39. Did full drills and 6x strides in 2’04 and then 200m in 31.0. Finished easy out of the park and stopped at Mega to get yogurt and then bread on the way back. Total run 25km in 1h51.

XT: Glues (10x, 6x weights)

16:30: Ran solo around La Carolina. Very dark clouds to the South but didn’t materialize up here. Phew. 2 big laps in 16’03, 15’45, and then 3/4 lap to add 2km to the clockwork loop this week. Stopped and did drills

Martes, 15 de Enero, 2019 – Sparknotes: 5000m fartlek in 17’00 w/ 10x[300m @ 53.3 avg, 200m @ 48.6] + 5x200m @ 29-32 (200 jog)

09:00: Slept late as I wasn’t planning to do the group’s workout and I need a ton of sleep right now. Two good nights and mellow days in a row, though, and RHR rate is down to 47 where it should be.

Jogged over to the track and easy 6km or so of warmup mostly on grass around the track. Did drills solo and then 4x strides.

Goal was to do very light track fartlek w/ 300m on, 200m off. I figured if I could keep the pace under 54s (3’00/km pace) and recovery around 48 (4’00/km) that would be pretty solid. Definitely felt tired from pushing mileage the last few days. First few reps felt okay but got slower each rep. Took a short pause at halfway to catch my breath and ran second half a bit better. Finished w/ last 500m continuous (1’33) to finish at 5K in 17’00.

Took full recovery and then ran 5x200m w/ very slow jog 200m recovery 65-75”. Ran 200s in: 31.5, 32.2, 31.8, 29.8, 34.1. Ran #4 hardest and very relaxed on #5. Good to get some quicker turnover in.

Ran the workout in Rockets and then cooled down home to drop stuff off and longer around the park, 2 slow big laps for 10km in 47’.

Total run 23km++.

XT: Pedestal (8’, 6x weights)

16:15: Pretty tired this afternoon. Nice day though. Ran easy around la carolina, 2 big laps slow 16’28, 16’09 and then to the track 3/4 lap. Stopped and did drills and then 4x strides in 2’05, felt better than I expected but definitely tired from this AM and the last few days of volume. Easy run home. Total run 12km in 53’30.

Miercoles, 16 de Enero, 2019 – 10:45: Ran very late after having coffee w/ the kiddos and sending Alex off to Cuenca. Beautiful morning, ran up to Metropolitano. Route is feeling better w/ the hills – more manageable – and avg pace is getting quicker each run I do in there (today it was 4’41 on the way out of the park). Stopped and did strides on the road up near the park exit (6x in 2’03) and then 200m+ in 33.x (2’38/km on garmin, slight downhill). Finished easy down the hill around around for 15.5km in 69’.

XT: Glutes (10x reps, 6x weights).

16:15: Felt much better this afternoon. Ran easy around la carolina, 2 big laps 15’47, 15’20 and then to the track, 3km in 12’48. Stopped and did full drills and 4x strides in 1’22, felt very good. Jogged back easy. Total run 12km+ in 51’.

Jueves, 17 de Enero, 2019 – Sparknotes: 7x [100m, 200m, 300m, 200, 100m @ 15-16, 31-34, 49-54, 100m jog] 1’30-2’30 b/w sets. 2’47.1 avg for 6300m work.

07:00: Almost slept through the workout as my phone restarted and alarm didn’t go off. Oops. Still woke up at like 06:42 and was out the door by maybe 07:05 having had coffee.

Jogged w/ Scott down to the estadio and then did a lot of drills (maybe 30’ or so, some pretty intense) and then about 15’ of jogging. Changed into rockets and then did 3-4 strides and got into the workout.

Session was 5-7 sets of 100m, 200m, 300m, 200m, 100m w/ 100m jog b/w each rep and 2’00 recovery b/w sets. I figured this would actually be a good 5K workout for me as I thought the pace would be relatively quick.

I was surprised we started off quite slow. The pace felt very easy in the first set (JL was leading) and in retrospect it was by far the slowest (2’40 for the 900m of work which is only 2’58 pace).

I led the second one quicker w/ 2’33 for the work (2’50/km pace). It still felt quite manageable through that and the set 3. It wasn’t until set number 4 when one of the bomberos guys hopped in and led us out way faster on the short reps (15, 34, 49, 31, 15) that things started to ramp up.

We took a slightly longer break after rep 4 (2’17) to take some water and then got into the meat of the workout. The last 3 reps we maintained the higher effort level of rep 4 and it definitely felt harder. The avg work pace for the last 4 reps was 2’41, 43, 45, 42.

The last rep was just me and Miki and he clearly had way more left than me as he really tried to push the recovery 100m. It was still by far our fastest set overall (the recovery avg’d under 30s/100m) and he was literally having to turn around and wait for me. Felt very good about the effort though and maintained pace very well.

Super tired muscularly and aerobically. This was really quite a hard session. The individual reps weren’t so hard but doing them w/ ~30 sec jog rest was quite tough. The 2-3-2 in the middle was definitely the hardest part and then the last 100m was really like a kick as you were really in the red aerobically and muscularly quite fatigued at that point. Good practice!

Cooled down short w/ Miki on the grass and then w/ Scott to finish at Inaquito.

Total run 20km+ in 1h36.

Splits:

Total work avg: 2’47.1/km for 6300m
Total rec avg: 5’20/km for 2800m

100 m 0’16.3 (0’16.3) work (2’40.2) (2’58.0)
100 m 0’47.7 (0’31.4) rec (2’06.7) (5’16.8)
200 m 1’23.5 (0’35.8) total (4’46.9) (3’40.7)
100 m 1’57.0 (0’33.5)
300 m 2’51.7 (0’54.7)
100 m 3’23.3 (0’31.6)
200 m 3’59.2 (0’35.9)
100 m 4’29.4 (0’30.2)
100 m 4’46.9 (0’17.5)

1’48 jog

100 m 0’16.7 (0’16.7) work (2’33.7) (2’50.8)
100 m 0’50.9 (0’34.2) rec (2’15.9) (5’39.8)
200 m 1’25.3 (0’34.4) total (4’49.6) (3’42.8)
100 m 2’03.1 (0’37.8)
300 m 2’55.3 (0’52.2)
100 m 3’30.3 (0’35.0)
200 m 4’04.4 (0’34.1)
100 m 4’33.3 (0’28.9)
100 m 4’49.6 (0’16.3)

1’30 jog

100 m 0’16.2 (0’16.2) work (2’30.8) (2’47.6)
100 m 0’47.4 (0’31.2) rec (2’04.6) (5’11.5)
200 m 1’21.3 (0’33.9) total (4’35.4) (3’31.8)
100 m 1’53.0 (0’31.7)
300 m 2’44.4 (0’51.4)
100 m 3’17.8 (0’33.4)
200 m 3’51.2 (0’33.4)
100 m 4’19.5 (0’28.3)
100 m 4’35.4 (0’15.9)

1’50 jog

100 m 0’15.5 (0’15.5) work (2’25.6) (2’41.8)
100 m 0’48.2 (0’32.7) rec (2’23.2) (5’58.0)
200 m 1’22.3 (0’34.1) total (4’48.8) (3’42.2)
100 m 1’59.1 (0’36.8)
300 m 2’48.4 (0’49.3)
100 m 3’27.0 (0’38.6)
200 m 3’58.4 (0’31.4)
100 m 4’33.5 (0’35.1)
100 m 4’48.8 (0’15.3)

1’48 jog

100 m 0’15.6 (0’15.6) work (2’27.1) (2’43.4)
100 m 0’45.7 (0’30.1) rec (2’10.0) (5’25.0)
200 m 1’19.2 (0’33.5) total (4’37.1) (3’33.2)
100 m 1’50.9 (0’31.7)
300 m 2’41.2 (0’50.3)
100 m 3’16.3 (0’35.1)
200 m 3’49.1 (0’32.8)
100 m 4’22.2 (0’33.1)
100 m 4’37.1 (0’14.9)

2’17 jog

100 m 0’15.5 (0’15.5) work (2’29.0) (2’45.6)
100 m 0’43.4 (0’27.9) rec (2’01.9) (5’04.8)
200 m 1’17.1 (0’33.7) total (4’30.9) (3’28.4)
100 m 1’46.7 (0’29.6)
300 m 2’38.8 (0’52.1)
100 m 3’10.5 (0’31.7)
200 m 3’42.3 (0’31.8)
100 m 4’15.0 (0’32.7)
100 m 4’30.9 (0’15.9)

2’50 jog

100 m 0’15.1 (0’15.1) work (2’26.2) (2’42.4)
100 m 0’42.6 (0’27.5) rec (1’54.2) (4’45.5)
200 m 1’15.0 (0’32.4) total (4’20.4) (3’20.3)
100 m 1’44.6 (0’29.6)
300 m 2’36.4 (0’51.8)
100 m 3’07.1 (0’30.7)
200 m 3’38.4 (0’31.3)
100 m 4’04.8 (0’26.4)
100 m 4’20.4 (0’15.6)

13:15: Easy mid day run around la carolina, solo. Nice out, some sun, some clouds, not too hot. Ran 2 big laps in 16’12, 15’38 and then to the track. Did drills and 4x strides pretty slow (1’28) and relaxed, muscularly quite fatigued still from the AM. Jogged back via portugal to clean out the ink. Total run 13km in 55’.

XT: Pedestal 8’, 6x weights

15:15: Ran w/ Scott for his last run here! Very easy around the park, 1 big lap in 17’xx and then to the track. Quicker than I expected, under 5’00/km which is good for him up here, especially since he did part of the workout this AM! Finished w/ drills and 4x strides which felt surprisingly decent in 2’02. Beautiful late afternoon light and we were lucky as the very top of Cotopaxi poked out right between the cloud layers to say hello to us just before heading back. Jogged back to the empanada place and then walked home. Total run 7km+ in 33’. 40km for the day.

Viernes, 18 de Enero, 2019 – 09:15: Slept well last night and woke up to another sunny morning! Ran easy solo up through metropolitano. So beautiful up there. Snagged the CR on the first really steep set of hills in the park b/c I’m a strava bub now. A bit tired from yesterday but not too bad. 12km in 57’ coming out of the park and then ran down to Carolina and did a 3/4 lap to the track to stop around 17km. Did full drills and 6x strides in 2’06 and then 200m in 31.8. Finished easy home. Total run 19km in 1h25.

XT: Glutes (10x, 6x weights)

15:45: Another beautiful afternoon! Easy clockwork loop w/ 2 big laps (16’19, 15’51) and then to the track. Another glimpse of the Coto glaciar right when I arrived. Did drills and then 4x strides in 1’24. Legs still a bit tired from the last few days but not bad. Finished home. Total run 12km++ in 52’.

Sabado, 19 de Enero, 2019 – 09:15: Slept well and really long last night. Phew. Ran easy around the park. Pace was slower than the effort felt today. Have a bit of a cold. 2 big laps in 16’23, 16’09. Finished to the track, drills, 6x strides in 2’04, 200m in 32.6 (dodging pedestrians — it is Saturday after all). Finished easy to supermaxi to get groceries and sidewalk ethio. Total run 13km in 55’.

XT: Glutes (6x weights)

15:30: Easy run solo around the park. Felt much better than the AM and ran quicker, 2 big laps (15’53, 15’21) and then to the track. Drills and 4x strides in 1’23. Felt good. Jogged back. Total run 12km in 50’.

Domingo, 20 de Enero, 2019 – Sparknotes: 30km in 1h58 (3’56 avg) w/ first 16km @ 3’46, SICK W/ COLD/FLU TODAY.

07:00: Jogged over to the cruz to meet up w/ Franklin and Isra for long run today. Slept terribly as I started feeling really ill last night – sore throat, painful swallowing, etc. – and took a nyquil at like 5p. Felt a bit better in the AM and decided to go for it, especially since I’d told those two I’d meet them.

I thought Franklin wanted to go slower than the 3’50-4’00 I’d said I wanted to run, but we took off together and he was pushing the pace from the go (3’43 first km). I figured maybe he’d just start out hot and then cool down on the big hill but the pace stayed very aggressive and once we started really climbing the hill, Isra dropped both of us and then Franklin dropped me. I could tell from the effort that that was too hard and actively held back, hoping I hadn’t blown it too early. I got to the top of the hill and avg was like 3’55 or about 10sec/km faster than the last long run I did. I turned around a few meters early to catch up w/ Franklin but he still dropped me on the rolling section before the big downhill. Crazy!

I actually felt okay but was worried that the pace was unsustainable for 2h45-55 which was what I’d planned. I cruised well down the hill and actually caught back up to Franklin (ran a 3’13 in there) but once it leveled out he pulled away.

From there, he only got farther away, especially after he made a couple stop lights that I missed. I was still running well at this point but effort definitely felt a bit high for this early in the run. I passed Cruz del Papa at 16km in just over 60’ and stopped to get some liquid (I was feeling very thirsty) and then set out solo to the south.

Really never felt great from that point on. Tried to relax but legs and body were just feeling really tired. Definitely a combination of still being sick and the fast start. Made it to the top of the panecillo hill at maybe 23km and stopped as I was just feeling awful and running slow. Tried to pee and it was basically brown. Oof.

Just as I was debating whether to keep going or head back, Franklin came from the opposite direction (heading back north), so I hopped in w/ him. Last about 2-3km w/ him to the top of the Alameda hill and then just packed it in (~26km) and jogged in the last 4km ~ 4’10/km.

Jogged home from there.

Couple big takeaways.

  1. Listen to the body. Don’t try to do what would have been the hardest session I’ve ever done when I’m up sick the night before.
  2. Hydrate more on these long runs. Need to plan this better and either run loops or have someone on a bike or something w/ me. Was extremely dehydrated today.
  3. Also listen to the body re pacing. If you’re running w/ other people and they’re going too hard, just let them go and do you thing. You know how it’s supposed to feel.

Total run 31.5km.

14:30: Took a long nap after the run this morning and felt a bit better. Ran early to get it out of the way while I had some energy. Easy clockwork double around the park, 2 big laps 16’16, 16’06 (quicker than I expected) and then to the track. Park was PACKED full of people today. Did drills on track but strides would be impossible so jogged over to Portugal and did them on one of the side streets there. Legs felt a bit tired. Throat is better but not 100%. Total run 12.5km in 54’.

XT: Pedestal, 8’, 6x weights.