Weekly Summary – 98 miles in 10 runs. Another victory (and monster training day) at Rock N Roll D.C. Marathon after my last few days at altitude in Quito. Looking forward to building off the huge base of strength I’ve developed over the coming months. Big things coming – stay tuned!

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’m looking forward to working w/ him again now that I’m back in town!

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 this summer, when we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even 10-day trips for adults and families.

 

Lunes, 4 de Marzo, 2019 – AM: OFF, got some work done, tried to go to iñaquito but it was closed for holiday.

14:00: Easy run around the carolina. Nice and sunny. Felt pretty tired and weak (day 2 of depletion) but got it done. 2 big laps in 17’02, 16’53. Pretty crowded around the track and north side of the park w/ carnival craziness. No way I was going to be able to do strides on the track. Tried to use the bike path but even that was packed so used the sidewalk across shyris. Did drills and 4x strides and then jogged back. Total run 12.5km in 58’.

XT: Heel drops, glutes (9x weights), toes

Martes, 5 de Marzo, 2019 – 08:00: Slept fairly well and woke up naturally before 07:00. Getting on that earlier schedule. Felt pretty awful for the run to be expected on day 3 of depletion. Ran over to the track to see if the gang was there but it was closed so ran over to the park to see if anyone was on the carolina track, still no one, so just did one big lap from there VERY slow 18’01! Really interesting how the depletion affects things. E.g. HR was very high (avg of 167 during that lap) despite only running a tick under 5’00/km, and cadence was extremely low (171). Finished at the track and did drills and 4x strides (also extremely slow despite normal effort) in 1’34 (again, interesting cadence is super low 165 on strides which seems impossible but I guess counts the jogging in/out). Jogged over to inaquito to finish. Total run 10km+ in 49’.

XT: Heel drops (10x each), toes

14:30: Ran w/ Greg and Emy VERY slowly down to la Carolina, about 12’00 through the first mile and then felt like I was tripping over myself and ran off on my own. Nice to ease into the run on the last CHO depleted session. Track was full of kids/people again for carnaval so ran down the other side of the park and over into Benalcazar and did 4x strides on the street. Felt very tired on these. Jogged over to 6 and then back most of the way, ran into Ryan walking back so walked w/ him up to coruna. Total run 6km+ in 32’.

Miercoles, 6 de Marzo, 2019 – Sparknotes: 5000m in 17’04 w/ 3x1K @ 3’20, ‘16, ‘14, 500m rec @ 1’50 avg + 500m @ 1’32.

09:00: Survived another 3 day depletion. Woke up and had a granola bar around 01:00 and then went back to bed until about 06:00. Got up at that point and had a big breakfast and then headed out around 9.

Jogged down to the track for the last tuneup. Would normally have done this yesterday but timing w/ recovery block pushed it to today. Felt much better w/ some CHO in me but still not 100% there this AM. Jogged over and did drills, 3x strides and 200m in 36 and then got started. Had some tummy issues still (a bit of leftover from the weekend’s bug and an awful lot of vegetables in the last 3 days), and the faster running seemed to aggravate that.

First rep felt good and I was a bit late in hitting the split, so under 3’20 very relaxed. Took the first 500m rec a bit too quick (1’47) and then tried to accelerate the next rep. Did a bit and ran 3’16 but was pretty gassed and tummy felt pretty bad. Had to stop about 300m into the next rep as stomach was very bad and thought I was going to poop my pants, but then hopped back in and finished (3’14) and then the last 500m was nothing special 1’32 only.

Felt like legs were just not 100% there yet. Probably need more time for CHO absorbtion on any real level. Looking at the data, cadence was still very low, basically below 180 after the first rep, which explains it feeling slow. Stomach didn’t help. Hopefully things turn around in the next few days!

Easy jog and then home. Total run 13km+.

XT: Toes, heel drops (10x each side).

14:30: Last run in Quito (for now)! Another beautiful sunny afternoon. Legs felt 1000x better after a productive day of eating and resting. Ran down to la carolina and could just feel how energetic and bouncy I felt. Ran only 3/ 4 lap to the track but was under 4’10 pace and then did drill and 4x strides (1’21!) and then 200m in 31. All felt very good. Finished around the park and up to 6. Probably the last run I’ll be able to do shirtless in short for a while (at least outside). Total run 6km in 24’.

XT: Pedestal (8’, 9x weight), toes, heel drops.

Jueves, 7 de Marzo, 2019 – 13:00: Relatively smooth if tiring travel to DCA from UIO. Left the house around 22:00, smooth sailing at UIO, got about 30 minutes dozing in the lounge before boarding. Dozed on and off on the flight, got through MIA passport control, etc easily and then had a big breakfast at the MIA flagship lounge, dozed most of the second flight on/off. Probably no real REM sleep all night though. Got to DCA more or less on time and stuff was out quick and uber’d to hotel before 12p.

Pretty swollen and tired but had a cup of coffee and ran to get my number so I’d have everything done today. Felt better over the course of the run. About 4km to get there and then I had to get my number which took maybe 15 minutes and then ran back and over to the Mall. Did drills and then 6x strides then ~200m on the dirt. Felt pretty decent. Windy and cool about 40F. Jogged easy back to hotel. Total run 10km+ in 42’30.

XT: Heel drops, toes

Viernes, 8 de Marzo, 2019 – 08:00a: Slept very well and long last night. So tired! Great to sleep very deeply w/ all the O2 down here.

Cool again in the low 30s this AM and ran through the city to try to find a track open. Went to 3 different tracks before finally got to one that was unlocked (though oddly shaped – it was 400m but the straights were not parallel. One turn was much wider than the other. Odd).

About 6km there and felt good and then did drills and strides (4x) in carbon rockets. Then did 1600m continuous w/ acceleration each lap, starting very slow (82?), 76 (2’38), 73 (3’51), 68 (4’59). Felt really good and smooth on these. Very good. Finished easy jog down to metro center and took the metro over to Pent. City to meet up w/ the VC.

Total run 10.5km in 42’.

XT: Heel drops (10x), toes.

15:30: Took a very solid nap this afternoon – more than I expected! Guess I was still catching up from travel. Super brutal outside (33F and rain) so ran on the treadmill just to get the blood flowing a bit. Easy 5km from 5’00->4’15 or so. Did 500m @ 3’30/km at the end just to get the legs moving a bit and then jogged in last 500m. Total run 5km in 21’30.

XT: Heel drops (10x) toes.

Sabado, 9 de Marzo, 2019 – Sparknotes: Rock n Roll D.C. Marathon: 1st, 2’24’13 (3’25 avg), solo from 10K onward, very hard course! 2 hours rest, 20km @ 1’09’50 (3’30/km). Huge day!

06:00am: Woke up before 04:00 for 07:00 gun. Hung around in the hotel, had black coffee, 1 NV bar, and some nuun. Left a bit before 06:00 to head to the start. Super unorganized as I couldn’t find anyone who know what I was talking about when asking where I could drop my bottles off. Wandered around a bit but couldn’t find anyone so finally around 06:20 just started warmup.

Jogged maybe 10’ or so, didn’t start my watch. Used the bathroom and did drills and then dropped my stuff off. Felt warmer than I expected so didn’t wear arm warmers, just light gloves and hat (and singlet/halftights).

Got to the start in plenty of time. Did maybe 1.5 strides along the side and then got into the corral. Legs felt really good.

Gun went off and got off the line well to avoid the chaos and then settled after 100m or so. Tucked in behind some bub in shorts-over-tights who lasted a solid minute before getting swallowed up by a pack of about 5 runners: me, Franklin, a Moroccan guy who I’d stalked before the race and was a 2h11 runner and had finished 2nd at comrades, and then two American guys I didn’t know. Chatted w/ one of them who said it was his debut and he wanted to run 2h25-27 and so that seemed perfect for what I wanted to do the first 10km (~35’).

Pace felt extremely slow and relaxed as we were 17’54 at 5K and 35’52 (another 17’54) at 10K. I was feeling very antsy and surged a bit going up the really steep hill at 10K and kind of just maintained that effort coming off the steep part and found a higher cadence/effort level. I’d planned to wait until 12-13km (the real topping out point) but I felt really good and antsy so made a move there.

Next 5K was 16’11, coming to 15K in 52’03. I put a ton of space on the rest of the pack, which was kind of surprising as I thought the Moroccan guy would follow me. This was nice as I figured I would almost certainly get the W unless I did something stupid. This next bit was where the course changed though and I was bummed to see my splits were slower than I expected – I’d really crushed it from like 15-30k last year but the change in course really slowed things down. 20km was 68’44 (16’41), so halfway was maybe 72’30.

From there, the course crossed the river and the second half was VERY tough. The big hill that you did last year at 35km you had to do 2x this year, once from 22.5-25.5km and the other time 35-38km. This is a long hill culminating in a very steep two-pronged summit. I expected it to add maybe 1 minute of slow-down but it was very non-linear as that first pass over the hill when I’m usually feeling really good in the 20s really sapped my energy. My legs felt a lot flatter than expected both going up and coming down and I wasn’t able to acellerate that well. I did have a few good km on the flatter stretch along the river but there just weren’t that many flat km. Mostly it was a lot of turns and hills. Oof!

Anyway, so that whole second half wasn’t beautiful and was slower than I’d hoped/expected but we got it done. 2’24’13 I believe was the official winning time, so about 3’30 slower than last year. Some of that is surely the new course but I also just ran very, very well last year. I was a bit disappointed but glad I had a chance to still make the day worthwhile.

No cooldown. Post race was kind of a shit-show as again they managed to not have the gear-check trucks there yet, so I was wandering around in my singlet in 35F weather shivering for like 20 minutes. Luckily my parents and cousin were there and Michael gave me his giant ski-jacket so that was goo. Finally got my stuff and peace’d out.

11:30am: Jon and I had talked about this session and he told me I should decided before I finish the marathon whether I want to attempt it. I’m glad I did b/c it would have been easy to say “ah fuck it, let’s go to brunch, 42km is enough for one day”. I took a hot shower when I got back to the hotel to warm up and loosen up the muscles a bit and then went up to the gym and did the post-race session on the treadmill. This was again for control (of pacing/fueling), not having to stop (since I was in downtown DC and didn’t want to have to travel to run somewhere w/o stoplights), and impact trauma (since I’d already run 42+ km on pavement that morning).

NB: Between finishing the marathon and starting this workout I had 1 chewy bar, 1 cliff bar, and 1 gatorade. I took 100mg caffeine about 30 minutes before starting.

I honestly felt pretty awful warming up, but jogged 1km and then did some very light drills and maybe 2 accellerations on the treadmill before getting into it.

It felt pretty bad for the first few minutes but then I was actually in a pretty good rhythm for the first 10km or so. I did a very good job of “hunkering down”. I was listening to music and was able to really just compartmentalize each song (which more or less coordinated w/ each km) and would only look at my watch after 4 songs so I could split the watch at each 5K point. Took a gel at 10K.

After 10km, the effort really started to increase and suddenly I started to doubt whether I could finish. I bargained w/ myself and said I can make it to 15K, and then went back to just trying to get through each song, each km, one step at a time. I noticed my form was really struggling to stay together as well. Interesting.

Once I made it to 15K, I pretty much knew I would make it even though it felt increasingly hard. The machine stopped at 1 hour for maybe 15 seconds to reset and get back to speed and then finished out well. Increased the pace a tiny bit in the last 1K.

Overall, this was a fantastic effort and while neither the morning nor the afternoon session would be particularly impressive by themselves, together they create much more than the sum of their parts. This was definitely a breakthrough day in terms of the amount of volume at race pace (62km @ 3’26 avg). It gives me a lot of confidence in terms of being able to get in these last few really big runs over the next 8 weeks or so at sea level.

Total work was 20km in 69’50. Total run 21.5km

Domingo, 10 de Marzo, 2019 – 09:00am: Extremely sore this morning. Slept decent well but really hobbling around. Drove over to Tom and Christie’s place (right across from Tufts) and ran w/ Jon and a gaggle of CSU folks VERY slowly. Honestly wouldn’t have run much faster by myself though. Probably started off at 6’00/km and avg’d just over 5’30/km. It was also snowing (nice welcome back run!) which wasn’t too bad and actually made the ground a bit softer which was nice. No strides. Range of motion extremely limited. Really need to stretch/loosen up. Will try to see Sam Peck tomorrow. Total run 11km in 61’.

XT: Toes

PM: OFF, planned.