Weekly Summary – 117 miles in 14 runs. An amazing week here in the Andes w/ the best long run I’ve ever done up here (46.5km in 3h00), a good fartlek, and a good top-end speed session. Cal and I are getting FIT!

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Lunes, 9 de Julio, 2018 – 8am: Very easy run w/ big squad – Sierra, Will, Scott, Cal. Started out slow 5’22, 5’10 then under 5’00 pace the rest of the run. Wouldn’t have wanted to run much faster and nice to ease into it. Out 6km and back significantly quicker w/ just Sierra and Cal. Finished at strides road and did 4x strides. Felt very tired on these and didn’t even try to keep up w/ Cal. Deep fibers are definitely fatigued from yesterday. Easy jog back after. Total run 14km in 67’.

XT: Toes

4pm: Easy shakeout w/ Cal, Scott, Katie. Ran very slow to keep the group together which again was fine after yesterday. Nice conversational run out/back on the river rd. Came back to strides rd and did 5x which felt MUCH better than the morning. Total run 6km in 29’.

XT: Pedestal 7’ w/ 10x lift each

Martes, 10 de Julio, 2018 – 7:45am: Ran w/ Cal out/back on Taray rd. Legs are just about back to normal. Garmin was reading short as it was cloudy on the way out, so ran a bit faster than 4’30 on the way out and 4’21 avg by the time we got to strides rd., so must have been 4’10s or so on the way back. Stopped and did 4x strides which felt much better than yesterday and then back. Total run 16km in 1h09.

XT: Toes

1pm: Ran w/ Calvin easy and early. Out/back on River rd. 4’30s out, 4’10s back. Felt good. Love running at this time of day though it was cloudy today. What?! Finished w/ 4x good strides. Jogged it in. Total run 10km in 44’.

XT: Pedestal (8’), Pull-ups (3 sets of 5,3,4)

Miercoles, 11 de Julio, 2018 – Sparknotes: 5km fartlek in 17’59 w/ 7x 1’/1’ + 4x 30”/30”

10am: Ran late due to the kids’ class schedules. Jogged over to Tambo w/ Sierra and then ran easy w/ Sierra, Cal, and Will for a bridge loop. Ran mostly w/ Sierra who ran very well averaging just over 4’30/km w/ the last 2km under 4’20. Met up w/ Cal and Will at the strides road and then Cal and I headed out to Taray to tack on another 10km or so to make the day a bit longer. Nice and sunny but felt a bit tired, especially b/c I hadn’t eaten anything yet since the night before. Running 4’05-4’15 for the most part on the out/back. Had 1 very slow km as we got stuck behind a cow for about 400m but then felt really good from the top of the hill back into town and ran 3’35/3’41 for the last 2km w/o too much effort. Good little run overall. Total run 22km in 1h36.

XT: Toes.

4:45pm: Ran solo w/ very limited time out/back on river rd for a little mini-fartlek. Just wanted to get in a bit of quicker running this PM as I’m still only 3 days out from that big long run and did 22km fasted this morning. Felt good and ran first km in 4’02 and then right into the fartlek, 1’ on, 1’ off. Felt okay and wasn’t too worried about pace, just wanted to get the legs moving. Went out to about the 2 mile mark and back and figured that should get me right about to the strides road. Had to stop briefly for one cow-passing, but otherwise continuous. Ran 7x 1’/1’ and then the rest 30 sec reps. Came to 5K just under 18’ and then stopped and did 4x strides which felt really good. Finished easy back to town. Total run 7km in 25’30.

XT: Big strength session w/ pedestal (7’) 10x squat jumps, 20x lunge jumps, 10x single leg distance hops, 10x single leg step hops (1 big step), 3 sets of 4x pullups, plank w/ shoulder pulls (1,2,3,4,3,2,1), single leg deadlifts (weighted), single leg squats (weighted).

Jueves, 12 de Julio, 2018 – 6:15am: Slept very poorly and had to wake up very early to run w/ Cal before his class. Didn’t feel great getting out of bed and RHR was quite high so I was surprised by that we were out 7km at 4’20 (didn’t look at my watch until the turn around) and then quicker on the way back. Finished at strides rd and did 4x strides which felt pretty tired. Jogged back around town. Total run 16km in 68’.

XT: Toes

2pm: Ran early double w/ Cal. Nice and warm and sunny but very windy. Kept it very easy 4’29 out/4’20 avg at the stride rd after 7.5k. 4x strides which felt better than the morning but still a bit tired. Finished easy back. Total run 8.5km in 36’.

Viernes, 13 de Julio, 2018 – Sparknotes: 4x100m fast, 2x200m @ 27.7, 1x 400m @ 61.5, full recovery.

7:15am: Jogged down to the track w/ the whole gang and very easy warmup around the track – no issue getting in. Felt still a bit tired from Wednesday but not too bad. Short drills session led by Coach Cathy and then a couple strides before starting the session.

Today was a top-end day. We’ve been doing hills and this was the natural progression to the flat track. A total of 1200m broken up into 3 sets of 400m of volume: 4x100m, 2x200m, 1x400m. Full recovery b/w everything. The first 4x100m are more like strides just getting harder each time. Then the 200s and 400 are supposed to be very fast.

100s felt good – like strides but more focused, especially on the last 2x. The 200s were very hard. First one felt very good and I was way behind Scott (25.x) and a bit behind Cal (26.high) in 27.7. That’s the first time I’d run under 28.0 in a LONG time. Second one Scott slowed way down and Cal and I were just about equal (again I ran 27.7).

The 400m was all anticipation and we took probably 5’ of recovery before hopping in. I was out in maybe 29.0 but just had nothing the last 200m – muscularly very fatigued and not engaged w/ Cal and Scott who were a second or so ahead of me at 200. Just didn’t have the turnover or strength. Ran 61.5 which is faster than I thought I’d hit given how slow I felt like I was running the last 200m.

Cooled down a bit longer out of the track around Tambo loop w/ Will, Sierra, and Cal. Felt pretty decent – not too wrecked.

Total run 12.5km in 73’ (including a lot of standing rest time).

XT: Toes

12:20pm: Ran early double w/ Calvin. Felt pretty decent but kept pace very relaxed after this morning. Out in 19’, back in 18’. No strides, just true shakeout. Total run 8km in 37’.

Sabado, 14 de Julio, 2018 – 10:30am: Ran later after travel to Ollantaytambo w/ the crew this morning. Got the ladies settled into Spanish school and then ran w/ Calvin down the steps and out/back towards Veronica. Weird weather, a bit drizzly w/ some clouds still but clearing. Hopefully the end of this front. Felt good and not too sore from yesterday, just some in the glutes. Finished w/ 4x strides – gnat city out there. Total run 10.5km in 45’.

4:30pm: Ran w/ Cal and Will out/back towards Urubamba. Felt pretty good and holding back a lot this afternoon w/ the big one tomorrow. Had to throw some rocks at dogs but otherwise uneventful. Total run 7km in 34’.

Domingo, 15 de Julio, 2018 – 46.5km in 3h00 (3’52/km avg)

08:00am: Big one today! Left solo at 8am from the bridge and ran out/back 55’ which ended up being just about 14km. Tried to really chill out this first hour and was listening to This American Life, so surprised to see average was under 4’00 at the turn around and 3’53 by the time I picked up Calvin. Took first gel around 45’.

From there, I was feeling good and we pushed pretty hard from that point on the 10 mile out/back in the other direction. Including the big hill which we did twice it was still like 61’ for those 10 miles back to the bridge (~19 miles for me).

Stopped briefly to grab nuun at the bridge as it was already hot AF w/ the sun out at like 10am. I was starting to feel it a bit at this point as we took off for the last out/back. Hung in there and maintained pace most of the way out but Cal put a small gap on me coming down the steep hill into the train station around 37km.

Started feeling real rough at this point which was also when we hit the roughest section of the road. This route is all dirt and the stretch from the train station to that little town (~2km) is really rocky w/ poor footing. I was really struggling these few km and was very glad to make it to the smoother dirt on the other side of the train tracks.

We turned around at what was 15 miles for Calvin, so about 24 miles for me, and then had to run back through the same rocky crap. Really tough at this point but hung w/ Calvin pretty well until maybe 40-42km. He almost got clotheslined by a cow’s rope (the cow had crossed the road and so there was a cow-height rope stretched taut across the road). I thought a lot about stopping and felt pretty bad for myself but kept telling myself I just had to get through the little bub town and then it was all easy downhill to the bridge.

This was basically true except I almost got mauled by a dog at the mean dog house and so had to huck a rock at it (w/ like 1.5km to go). Finally finished w/ the slowest km of the day, downhill, and met up w/ Cal at the bridge.

Overall 46.5km in 3h00 (3’52 avg).

This is several minutes faster than last year for the same run and we ran way more aggressively. Almost the exact same pace as last week’s marathon (I passed the marathon in 2’42’50 ish looking at my watch) on what was a much harder course (last week was half pavement).

This was a great end to a huge 15 day block of training here that included the Lima 7K, the 42K last weekend, and 46.5K this weekend. A lot of very good running in a short time. Good to take some real recovery now!

Really wiped after this one. Barely made it up the steps to get some more food/liquid.

XT: Toes

5pm: Very slow easy shakeout w/ Will and Cal. Ran out Punku Punku trail which is much shorter than I’d remembered (only about 500m) and then back on the road and on/back on the hiking trail. Made it up to where it really started going up and then turned back. No strides, just good shakeout on a lovely afternoon. Felt much better after. Total run 4km- in 22’.

XT: Massage