Weekly Summary – 115 miles in 13 runs. A great week w/ a marathon long run, short hills, and a good fartlek. Back at it!

Don’t forget, you can follow me day to day on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews) and my daily training log on Strava (GPS included!). Don’t forget to follow my adventures STRIVE – where I’ll be leading groups of students on a journey of running, service learning, and adventure in Peru. 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. Take a look if you’re interested in an amazing summer experience!

Lunes, 2 de Julio, 2018 – 8am: Ran easy w/ Cal out/back past Taray. Felt pretty good and running fairly normally despite the long day and race yesterday. Made about 13km back to the strides road around 4’20/km and then did 4x strides and met up w/ Will and tacked on another 5km or so w/ them through the forest and Tambo loop much slower. Total run 19km+ in 1h26.

XT: Toes

4:30pm: Easy shakeout w/ Calvin on river rd. Out/back and then stopped for 4x strides. Felt good and kept pace slow. Finish w/ loop around town for errands. Total run 7km in 31’.

XT: Pedestal

Martes, 3 de Julio, 2018 – 7:45am: Easy run w/ Cal out/back past Taray. Felt pretty good and running normal again. Slight negative split despite the big hill on the way back from 7-9km. Finished w/ 4x strides. Total run 16km in 69’.

XT: Toes

12:30pm: Earlier second run solo. Really like running at this time of day and will try to do it more when I have time. Felt good running quicker 4’15->3’50s. Finished w/ 4x strides and then back through town. Total run 8km in 32’.

XT: Pedestal

Miercoles, 4 de Julio, 2018 – Sparknotes: 12km fartlek 42’36 (3’33 avg) w/ 15x 1’ on, 1’ off, 12x 30” on, 30” off.

7:30am: Solo this morning w/ Cal sitting out the workout. Easy warmup solo out/back on river rd 5km to the gas station in 21’. Quick drills and a couple light strides and then started the session. Plan was to do ~45’ 12-13km of fartlek w/ 30’ of 1’ on, 1’ off and then the rest as 30” on, 30” off.

Goal was to really do the workout by feel and not worry about splits as I didn’t want this to be too killer. Didn’t look at my watch once in the first 8km during the 1’ reps. Effort felt good but not crazy. Had to look at my watch for the 30sec reps as I just had it set to beep every minute so had to manually split it for the 30s. Saw I was running 3’37 overall avg at that point (when I started the 30s), and then that went down every few minutes, so I knew I was running quicker.

Last 2km down the hill felt great to be running quick. Still had no idea how fast I was running on each rep, but the overall average was getting faster which had not happened last time I did this workout. Finished up through town and then out/back on the dirt to get to 12km. Ran the last 500m continuous in 1’36. Didn’t have much more than that, but felt good and finished 42’36 for 12K (3’33 avg).

Met up w/ Calvin and did 4x very good strides and then tacked on around Tambo loop for another 4km+ in 19’.

Total run 21.5km

NB Ran in Cavus

4:30pm: Ran very easy w/ Sierra and Calvin. About 6km out/back on river rd w/ Sierra and then did 3x strides nice and relaxed. Finished w/ a loop around Tambo w/ Cal a bit quicker. Total run 9.5km in 46’.

XT: Jumps: 15x box (2 step), 10x squat, 20x lunge, 3 pull ups

Jueves, 5 de Julio, 2018 – 9am: Ran later as Mariana was heading out this morning and wanted to see her off. Nice and warm and sunny. Ran quicker as Cal seemed to want to push. 4’23/km on the way out and 4’15 avg by the time we stopped and did strides, so under 4’10 on the way back. Stopped and did 4x strides – good – and then jogged back. Total run 14km++ in 59’.

XT: toes.

1:30pm: Ran solo out/back on river rd. Nice to run mid-day again – warm and sunny! Felt good and running 4’20->3’59. Stopped for 4x strides and then around town. Total run 7km in 28’30.

XT: Pedestal (7’)

Viernes, 6 de Julio, 2018 – 7:15am: Ran easy w/ Cal out/back past Taray. Cold this early but nice in the sun. Got to the hill after 10km in 43’. Stopped and did drills and a few accelerations

Workout today was 10x short hills w/ full recovery. Definitely felt the best I have yet. Legs felt good and recovery was much better, especially on the first few reps, only about 2’. More at the end but still felt really good and catching up to Cal every time in the last few meters. Finished tired but not totally spent.

Easy jog back w/ the gang and then ethio in the courtyard before heading to the market. Total run 13km+ in 58’.

XT: Toes.

1pm: Ran w/ Calvin easy and early to get the shakeout done while it was still warm out. Felt pretty good and holding back a lot. Ran 3km out/back to strides road and then did 3x strides very relaxed after the morning. Finished w/ easy around town. Total run 7km in 32’.

XT: Strength/jumps: A mix of lunges, single leg squats, pullups (5x),

Sabado, 7 de Julio, 2018 – 9am: Ran later w/ lazy saturday. Did a big group run w/ Katie, Sierra, Scott, and Calvin. Nice to run w/ the bigger group especially those w/ whom I haven’t run much. Nice to run a lot slower today too – mostly 5’00+ on the way out on bridge loop and then back quicker 4’50s down to like 4’25 last km downhill. Really good run for Katie and nice to be a part of that. Finished w/ 4x strides and then easy back to the market. Total run 15km in 73’.

XT: Toes

PM: OFF – drove up to Kinsakocha (about 40’ from Pisac) and had a beautiful afternoon. Walked about halfway around the lake and then stopped for a picnic on a big rock poking out into the water. Had a family of mutts w/ a cute pup that followed us basically the whole way around. Stopped on the far side of the lake where it was sunny and a bit less windy and dipped in. Quite cold. Colder than I’d normally do an ice bath, but tolerable for about 8’ and legs felt much better after. Some of the kids went all the way under. Yikes! Still sunny out so not too bad after walking back. About two hours total at 4100m of nice easy walking (only about 3.5km around the lake), so a perfect relaxing afternoon. Only 100 soles round trip too. Great day.

Domingo, 8 de Julio, 2018 – Sparknotes: Marathon (42.2km) in 2’42’48 w/ big negative split (1h24/1h18).

8am: Big one today! Started out solo w/ Katie on the bike 5km out/back on the river rd. Felt pretty decent out the door 4’02 -> 3’35 for 5km in 19’. Picked up Cal and then did a Tambo loop and then out into the forest for the 2nd Big Black Llama of the summer. Felt like we were rolling pretty well and saw 2 or 3 sub 4’00 Ks in the forest which is pretty quick in there. I was surprised as Cal had said he wasn’t feeling great but just rolled w/ it and figured we’d either have a good one or implode spectacularly in the second half.

Got to 15km just before San Salvador (20km for me) and were still averaging just under 4’00. I knew if things were going well we’d be faster on the way back as it’s paved and you get a few sec/km just from that. Still surprised by how much we accelerated at that point. Only looked at my watch a few times on this stretch from 20-33km or so and knew we were running 3’30s-40s the whole time. Really felt strong at this point and was pushing pretty strongly and trying to just stay in the zone. Felt really good but didn’t think I had a ton more room to push faster for the rest.

We hit 33km just about as we hit Pisaq and continued heading out towards Taray. Calvin continued w/ us for another km or so and then he hit 18M and stopped and Katie and I continued on out/back another 9km or so. This was very tough but tried to just maintain effort and not look at the watch. Held form and pace very well and only slowed down on the few bigger uphill stretches like 38-40km. Pushed hard the last 2km and close in 3’38 for the last flat/uphill km.

Finished 42.2+ km in 2’42’48 (3’51/km avg). Big negative split w/ the first half marathon around 84’ and the second around 1’18 (3’40/km). Very, very good running for this early and this high. Definitely the fastest I’ve ever run for the full distance at altitude. This is by far the best month of training I’ve ever put in during STRIVE. Great to have Cal to help push.

Jogged to the end of the road and grabbed a sugary drink and watched Cal do some strides before heading back. Pretty pooped but not totally wrecked. Great morning.

Total run 42.2km in 2h42.

4pm: Easy shakeout w/ Cal. Didn’t feel as bad as expected. Started out slow 5’11 and then under 5’00 down to 4’29 5th km. Stopped and did 2x strides just to loosen up and then home. Total run 5.8km to round up for the day in 28’.

XT: Toes