Weekly Summary – 85 miles in 13 runs. First – as this is now race week – I’m excited to officially announce that I’ll be competing for my first US National Title and my first spot on a US National Team at the USA 50km National Championship on March 1 in Huntington, NY! More on this to come, but if you’ve been wondering why I’ve been doing all these very long runs, here’s your answer. As for this week – a low volume week as I have a mini-taper for this race. Two workouts were 30km at goal race pace on Wednesday and then a track 5k in 14’29 as a tuneup on Sunday. A solid week – legs are feeling good and ready!
Make sure you follow my brand new Instagram (@TylerCAndrews) for even more updates (especially if you’re interested in following the exploits of Richard Parker). And for all my running-nerd friends, check out the STRIVE-Cast, a podcast I co-host with David Wilder where we recap the week’s running news and interview professional runners!
Lunes, 16 de Febrero, 2015 – 10am: Slept very long – super tired. Woke up and did easy 5M solo. A bit sore at first from yesterday but better by the end. Total run 5M+ in 40’.
4pm: Ran first 4M with Mariana. Snowing and cold. A small amount of snow on the ground but just fresh enough that it wasn’t uncomfortable. Started out slow with her and then felt quite good after. Total run 10M++ in 75’.
XT: Core, 12’.
Martes, 17 de Febrero, 2015 – 9am: Snow last night turned slushy, so a very slippery morning. Only ran 3M with the last km or so inside crystal city shops since it was a total mess. Total run 3M+, NT.
3pm: Ran early since it was very sunny and looked nice. Not too cold, but still lots of snow – couldn’t get on Mt Vernon, so ran up and down crystal drive on the sidewalk. Kind of annoying, but can’t get too annoyed since Boston is still buried 🙂 Finished with 1km quicker in 3’24 to move the legs a bit. Total run 7M+.
XT: Hips.
Miercoles, 18 de Febrero, 2015 – 8:30am: Kind of a logistical clusterf!ck, but ended up going well once I got to it. Woke up at 5am, had black coffee and a bagel. This was the last long-run until until the race in 10 days.
I went out at 8:30am to do the run and did a full (short) warmup with drills and started the run, ran about 5 minute and then realized that the bike path where I planned to run was way too icy, so I ran back to the main road by my building where the sidewalks/bike lanes were cleared and started over and ran out/back on a ~3km section of cleared road with no lights. So, a very weird warm-up which was much longer in terms of minutes and miles than I’d planned and included almost 1M at RP (probably 5-6km extra warm up in total).
Once I got going, it was pretty good. Splits were very good in the 3’22-26/km range for the most part (16’5x – 17’0x per 5k). Kept it very consistent until the last 4km or so where I dialed it down a bit to 3’15-20/km. Total was 1’41’58 for 30km (3’23.9/km, 5’28/M). Full splits at the bottom.
Also worth noting that I didn’t have gatorade and only talk water and 2 gels (at 10k and 20k) for no reason other than I wasn’t prepared and forgot to buy gatorade yesterday. No energy issues though.
Easy running now until Sunday. Taper time!
Total run 21M+.
Splits
5 km 0’17’08 (17’08)
10 km 0’34’17 (17’09)
15 km 0’51’16 (16’59)
20 km 1’08’14 (16’58) (HM in ~1’12)
25 km 1’25’16 (17’02)
30 km 1’41’58 (16’42)
4pm: Very easy shakeout – 2M only.
XT: OFF.
Jueves, 19 de Febrero, 2015 – 9am: Very easy shakeout after yesterday. A bit stiff. Total run 6M+ in 48’.
4pm: Ran at gym because it was snowing and windy and 10F and I’m a huge baby. Total run 5M+ in 40’.
XT: Upper body circuit. 4 sets of [20x pushup, 30x flutter (x2), 20x dips]
Viernes, 20 de Febrero, 2015 – 9am: Another easy shakeout. Very cold around 12F. Total run 6M in 45’.
4pm: Easy run, felt much better. Running quicker at the end. Feeling the lower volume. Total run 4M in 27’.
XT: Core, 12’.
Sabado, 21 de Febrero, 2015 – 9am: Ran short because it was awful outside – very slushy and rain/snow coming down. Easy and then 2x strides. Very easy day with “practice race” tomorrow. Total run 4M+.
XT: Hips
PM: OFF. Rest for race/time-trial tomorrow.
Domingo, 22 Febrero, 2015 – 8am: Woke up at 4:30am. Had half a bagel and black coffee.
Workout today was a practice “race” – I’ve been feeling very good working out at 2’50-2’55/km pace, so we decided to run a hard 5km today. Had originally planned to run it on the Mt. Vernon path, but with snow last night, the path was slushed over but ran over to the track which was clear.
Warm up was about 3M and then drills and strides. Goal was to run around 2’55/km (14’35). I mostly just wanted to feel good at that pace and try to see how far I could hold it.
As usual, I felt worst in the first kilometer. It seems to just take me longer and longer to really “get into it.” First km was the slowest (2’57.0) and was a bit slower than I wanted to go out. Around a mile (4’45ish), I was still not feeling great but between 2-3km I started to feel much better and settle into the 70.x/lap pace.
3km was 8’48 (2’55.5 3rd km). At that point, I tried to actively accelerate and then the next lap there was only a mile left! That didn’t seem so bad! I was just under 10 minutes (~9’58) with 1600m to go, so I knew if I closed very hard I had a chance to run under 14’30. I’ve been able to run around 2’50 at the end of workouts, so I was hoping I’d have the speed to run 2’48-50.
I ended up still feeling good at 4km and again 1km to go just seemed very manageable, even being quite tired. With 500m to go, I knew I was going to run quick and still had a few more gears. Ran the last 500m hard but never all out. Last km was 2’47, so last 1600m was about 4’31. Last lap was ~66-67.
I had originally planned to do a short follow up workout after the intervals, but I was feeling very tired and thought I might have tweaked something slipping on ice during my easy jog. Ugh.
I guess I should also mention that this is a big 5k PR actually. I ran 14’45 outdoors as a senior in college and haven’t really raced the 5k much at all since then. I was pretty confident that mark would go down today as it’s very weak comapred to some of my others. Still, always great to run faster than you ever have! Especially running solo and without too much taper or workouts, I was very pleased. Very excited for next weekend.
Jogged back to the gym for legs. Total run 9M++.
Splits
1km: 2’57.0
2km: 5’52.9 (2’55.9)
3km: 8’48.4 (2’55.5)
4km: 11’42.8 (2’54.4)
5km: 14’29.9 (2’47.1)
XT: Legs at the gym: 3 sets of [15x each leg step ups, 20x overhead lunge (10lb), 24x static lunge (20 lb), 12x squat (bar)].
3pm: Easy shakeout. Actually super nice out – over 50F. Running quicker by the end, ~4’00/km. Felt surprisingly good. Total run 3M+ in 22′.
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