Weekly Summary – 122 Miles in 13 runs. GREAT “peak” workout on Saturday with 35km at close to marathon pace. Time to maintain this fitness and get to race day healthy. Less than 5 weeks to go!
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews). And, of course, don’t forget to check out STRIVE’s 2016 Programs, including the newly announced STRIVE-Peru: Spring Break program! 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!
Lunes, 4 de Enero, 2016 – 11am: Ran late after morning work call. Started out very slow but felt pretty decent by the middle. Total run 13M.
XT: Back/hips.
4pm: Easy shakeout around CC to the fields. Finished with 8x diagonals barefoot. Felt good but COLD and windy! Time to head South… Total run 5M.
XT: Hips
Martes, 5 de Enero, 2016 – 9am: COLD! 14F this morning. Ran easy to start – a bit tired, but much better by the end ~3’40/km. Total run 16M+ in 1h53’.
XT: Back/hips
4pm: Very easy shakeout around CC. A bit depleted and low-energy. Still quite chilly. Total run 5M, NT.
XT: Core.
Miercoles, 6 de Enero, 2016 – Sparknotes: 8km (5M-) in 24’16 (3’02/km, 4’53/M) with fartlek of 1 minute fast (2’50-3’10/km; 4’33-5’06/M), 1 minute quick recovery (3’10-25/km; 5’06-30/M).
9am: Workout wednesday – a light one with a big workout coming on Saturday. Easy warm up ~5km and then drills and strides. Goal was 8km of fartlek with 1 minute fast, 1 minute recovery (but still quick, not slow). Quite cold again (in the 20s), but not windy which was nice.
Started out on the slow end – 3’05-10/km for the on and 3’25-3’30/km for the recovery and quickly accelerated after the first few reps to where I was running in the 2’50s for the fast minute and in the 3’10s for the slow minute. Felt quite good on these, got a bit tired around 5k (15’08) but another 9 minutes didn’t seem like that long to run. Penultimate km was the fastest (mostly due to the placement of on/off minutes) but I was definitely running fastest for the last minute-plus (finished running all the way to 8km so about 76 seconds).
Overall, a good workout but not super killer by any means. Finished and felt out of breath but pretty much recovered within a few minutes.
Jogged longer back to the gym for legs after.
Total run 15M
Full splits
1 km 3’01.3 (3’01.3)
2 km 6’02.8 (3’01.5)
3 km 9’06.3 (3’03.5)
4 km 12’10.2 (3’03.9)
5 km 15’08.6 (2’58.4)
6 km 18’18.1 (3’09.5)
7 km 21’14.9 (2’56.8)
8 km 24’16.2 (3’01.3)
XT: Legs at the gym. 3 sets of [15x step ups, 20x overhead lunge, 24x dynamic lung, 12x squat (bar)]. No weights – resting a bit with a big one on Saturday.
4pm: Easy barefoot shakeout. Finished with 10x diagonals which felt surprisingly very good. Definitely didn’t take too much out of the legs this morning. Total run 5M, NT.
Jueves, 7 de Enero, 2016 – 8am: Woke up naturally a bit earlier – good sign! Had some food and then ran easy on CC loop. Legs felt good and running quicker ~4’10/km pretty quickly. Finished 5x strides. Ethio cooldown. Total run 8M+.
XT: Back/hips
3pm: Ran on treadmill in sweats. Time to start doing some heat training again as it’s probably not going to be below freezing in LA next month! Felt great. Ran from 7’30/M down to 5’30/M. Finished with 5x strides outside. Ethio cooldown. Total run 5M+.
XT: Hips
Viernes, 8 de Enero, 2016 – 8am: Easy run this morning with a big one tomorrow. Basically practiced warm up for tomorrow – ran 1M easy then stopped and did drills and then changed into flats and ran 1M in 5’06. Felt great. Finished with easy running just to feel like I’d gotten something accomplished. Total run 6M.
XT: Back/hips.
PM: OFF – no run. Walk to/from grocery store (about 2M). Big dinner around 6:30pm. Bed around 9pm.
Sabado, 9 de Enero, 2016 – Sparknotes: 35km (21.75 miles) in 1’51’38. Negative split with 31’27 last 10k, 50’39 last 10M, 66’40 last HM. Total avg 3’10.5/km, 5’06.6/M, 2’13’58 marathon pace.
6am: Woke up around 6am feeling good. Small breakfast – animal crackers and black coffee around 6:40am.
Goal was to run continuous at close to goal marathon pace (3’10-12/km) for 30-35km (I’d done 30km in this build-up and 30 and 32km in last year’s build-up). This is at the point (5 weeks out from my target race) where I usually do my most intense workout of the entire season, so it was to be very demanding but not 100%. With this in mind, I took a few very easy days leading into this workout and wanted to practice all things race related in the workout (including timing of meals/sleep, fueling, etc.).
Watched Great Edinburgh XC meet which got me good and fired up and then headed down to start the workout right at 10am (to mimic the Trials start time). In retrospect, I think this might have been too much time – I should either stage my coffee a bit later or just get up an hour or so later.
Warmed up 8min easy to loop and then did light drills and took Gel #0 about 10min before starting. Weather was great, around 50F and very light winds, some mild drizzle on and off. I was running on a 5km loop that I would run 6-7 times, so I could get powerade each loop and a gel every 10k.
I started out actively holding back for the first few kilometers. Jon had said that ideally, I would come to 10k a bit behind pace, and that’s just what happened (32’09). This felt fairly relaxed and I made a pretty active acceleration at that point, running the next 5k 15 seconds faster (15’50).
At the start of the next loop, I noticed that my lower back on my right side was starting to bother me and I felt that my stride was just a bit off. I was feeling some kind of hitch as I landed on my right foot. My hips didn’t seem to be staying level and I felt like I wasn’t getting any power out of my right side. I knew that the flats I was running in were pretty worn down, so I decided to try changing shoes, thinking that perhaps the wear on the foot-strike part of the shoe was causing some slight subconscious mechanical change. So, I turned around, ran back to the start and stopped the clock to change from the flats into the clifton, which I had worn for the warm up. This took a couple minutes.
Starting up, I felt much better and smoother almost immediately. Again, I’m not sure if this was a unique problem with this pair of shoes or if I’m just more used to running in the Clifton, but it’s definitely something I’ll consider over the next 5 weeks as I begin to think about what shoe I’m going to wear in LA.
The next lap brought me through half marathon in just under 67’30, which was exciting, as I knew it meant I had sped up since the first 10k. I was still feeling pretty good and running faster each lap (this one had been my fastest at 15’44).
Mentally, I tried to treat the last 10k like the last 10k of the marathon, counting down the kilometers and minutes and trying to convince myself that I had enough left to make it all the way. At 30k, I saw I was well under my 30k time from 2 weeks ago and that got me a little amped heading into the final 5k. After 20 miles (1’42’32), I knew I was in new territory, but I also knew that another 9 minutes didn’t seem that crazy.
Those last 9 minutes were quite hard, but I still managed to finish with the fastest kilometer of the day (3’04) and fastest 5k lap (15’40).
Overall, this brought me into 35km (21.75 miles) in 1’51’38. It had been a big negative split with a 31’27 last 10k, 50’39 last 10M, 66’40 last HM. The total avg was 3’10.5/km, 5’06.6/M, 2’13’58 marathon pace.
This is a huge workout and a giant stimulus, so I’ll definitely take a few more easy days after this to make sure I’m feeling recovered before doing anything fast or long again. Still, this puts me in a great spot and I’m extremely excited for these last 5 weeks of training until race day!
Cooled down 2km home. Ethio cooldown
Total run 25M.
XT: OFF
Full splits
1 km 3’11.3 (3’11.3)
2 km 6’25.4 (3’14.1)
3 km 9’37.9 (3’12.5)
4 km 12’50.8 (3’12.9)
5 km 16’03.0 (3’12.2) (16’03.0)
6 km 19’16.8 (3’13.8)
7 km 22’27.9 (3’11.1)
8 km 25’39.4 (3’11.5)
9 km 28’55.7 (3’16.3)
10 km 32’08.7 (3’13.0) (16’05.7)
11 km 35’18.2 (3’09.5)
12 km 38’25.7 (3’07.5)
13 km 41’36.5 (3’10.8)
14 km 44’46.5 (3’10.0)
15 km 47’58.5 (3’12.0) (15’49.8)
16 km 51’08.0 (3’09.5) (51’26 at 10M)
17 km 54’16.7 (3’08.7) (Stopped to change shoes)
18 km 57’28.7 (3’12.0)
19 km 1’00’44.1 (3’15.4)
20 km 1’03’54.6 (3’10.5) (15’56.1)
21 km 1’07’03.5 (3’08.9) (HM in 67’21)
22 km 1’10’12.0 (3’08.5)
23 km 1’13’19.5 (3’07.5)
24 km 1’16’30.6 (3’11.1)
25 km 1’19’39.0 (3’08.4) (15’44.4)
26 km 1’22’46.1 (3’07.1)
27 km 1’25’54.9 (3’08.8)
28 km 1’28’58.9 (3’10.5)
29 km 1’32’15.2 (3’10.9)
30 km 1’35’30.5 (3’09.9) (15’47.2)
31 km 1’38’45.0 (3’11.6)
32 km 1’41’57.7 (3’06.0) (20M in 1’42’32)
33 km 1’45’13.2 (3’08.1)
34 km 1’48’25.7 (3’10.5)
35 km 1’51’38.2 (3’04.1) (15’40.3)
(31’27 last 10k, 50’39 last 10M, 66’40 last HM)
Total avg 3’10.5/km, 5’06.6/M, 2’13’58 marathon pace
5pm: Nice long walk around town to do some errands this afternoon and then ran late on treadmill because it was dark and raining and I’m a baby. Easy shakeout. Total run 6km, 3M+++.
Domingo, 10 de Enero, 2016 – 8am: Up early for a photoshoot with Run Washington and the other DMV area Trials qualifiers. Beautiful morning, though and nice to be down by the water (at the Jefferson Memorial) as the sun was coming up). Ran from there over the bridge with Dickson and then headed south solo as he went north. Ran all the way south past Alexandria and then back home. Felt surprisingly good after a few slow km to start. Total run 12.5M, 20km+ in 1h31.
XT: Back/hips.
4:30pm: Ran later after taking a pretty deep nap. Felt quite sluggish at first. Definitely a bit over-eager this morning and knew I’d pay for it. SUPER windy also which was annoying, but it was quite warm, almost 60F. And this is January! Finished with barefoot strides (4x). Total run 4M.
XT: Core.
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