Weekly Summary – 72 miles in 10 runs. First real taper week with a big drop in mileage. A great track session on Thursday and a great uptempo on the roads on Sunday. Legs are feeling fresh and ready to roll. Less than a week to go!

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Lunes, 14 de Mayo, 2018 – 9am: Slept well last night and felt a lot better this morning. Easy run, just one, today w/ 3 day recovery block. Felt surprisingly decent and ran 2 big laps of the park 16’45, 16’15 – also very much over-dressed and it was pretty sunny, so much better than Saturday. Stopped at the track 10km in 46’ and did 6x strides, 200m in 35 (!) – very slow! Legs definitely still a bit fried from last week but easy running felt good. Finished easy around the track and then up Portugal. Total run 13km in 58’.

XT: Toes.

PM: OFF – lazy afternoon but got a lot from my long term to-do list done.

Martes, 15 de Mayo, 2018 – AM: OFF – walked down to Iqon office and back w/ Mar but otherwise lazy morning around the apartment. Nice and sunny today so might get in a run earlier to try to beat the PM rain.

1:15pm: Didn’t want to wait any longer as it was so beautiful out and I was feeling antsy. Ran down to the park and 2 big laps (15’52, 15’12). Really warm and overdressed a lot, so these are quite quick given that. Legs felt very good with 24+ hours off as expected. Stopped at the track and did 6x strides. Still didn’t quite have top end speed back but better than yesterday for sure. Finished w/ 200m in 32.7 which felt fairly relaxed. Easy run home after and a nice soak in the pool. Total run 14km in 59’.

XT: Toes

Miercoles, 16 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 6km easy + 4x500m @ 1’35->1’26 (testing out different shoes for race day), full recovery.

8:30am: Drizzly morning! Ran down to the park and 1 big lap in 15’48 and then back to the stretch on shyris where I was planning to meet Mariana so I could do some short race-pace reps in various shoes to figure out what I want to wear for VCM next weekend. Did full drills and then 4x500m in 3 different pairs of shoes: tracers, EVO racers, and CarbonX.

Tracers didn’t feel good on the wet asphalt, an issue I remember from CIM and other workouts/races. The EVO racers felt very good, much better traction and nice and bouncy but still responsive. The CarbonX I just can’t decide on. Sometimes I love them and sometimes they just feel weird. I ran the 10K in them a couple of weeks ago, but I just didn’t feel great running ~MP today and ran the slowest rep of the first 3x (1’35) at what felt like the same effort.

So, for the last one I tried the EVO racer again and was very pleased w/ that shoe. The fit feels best, the responsiveness to cushion ratio feels the best, and I just felt good running in it. That’s what I’ll race in.

On the last rep, I ran an acceleration in the last 200m, so 300m in about 55, 200m in about 31. Felt very good on this and good quick running on the bike path (which is winding and rolling). (I was using the painted on 100m marks for all of this, BTW. Who knows how accurate they are but at least each rep was consistent w/ the others. Garmin read .49-.50.)

Very short cooldown home via portugal. Total run 10km++ in 42’.

Splits:
1’33.9 (tracer)
1’32.9 (EVO)
1’35.2 (CarbonX)
1’26.9 (EVO – split 55.x, 31.x)

3pm: Ran solo earlier o get some sun and keep the daily schedule on the early side. Felt very good out the door and found myself running 4’0x pace pretty quickly, even on the grass. Shorter PM runs from here on, so 4km to the track in ~16’30. Stopped and did 4x strides which felt much, much better than the last couple days and then easy around the track and up portugal. Total run 6km+ in 24’.

Jueves, 17 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 15km fartlek 51’28 (3’25/km) w/ 2x 3K @ 9’58, 50, 2x 2K @ 6’27, 25, 1K @ 3’04 (1K rec @ 3’55 avg).

7am: Last big one on the track in the sky.

Woke up early ~5:30a and had coffee and some animal crackers as I was a bit hungry. Jogged over to the track and met up with the gang. Tons of drills today as the guys had a top end speed session, so I skipped out a couple of the super explosive ones that were basically plyos as I didn’t want to wear myself out too badly.

Workout was a long fartlek with 3K, 3K, 2K, 2K, 1K, starting slower than MP and finishing faster than MP w/ 1K in between moderate, 15km total. Doing this one solo. Started out running clockwise and planned to switch directions halfway through (after the 2x3K). Ran in tracers.

Actively started out very slowly as I want these last few workouts to really focus on progression. First km felt like a jog in 3’23 and from there accelerated the next two km 3’19, 3’16 for 9’58. 1km jog in 3’51 felt very comfy. Second 3km was similar but started a bit quicker and progressed less dramatically (3’18, 17, 15). 3’53 to recover and then I forgot to switch directions, so went right into the 2K still running CW.

Started out a bit quicker (3’15) as planned and again closed quicker (3’12). I think it was the rec after this that I finally remembered to turn around (3’52). Last 2km was definitely harder as I went out a lot harder in the first 400m or so and suffered the altitude red-line. I split my watch at the wrong line (I was starting at the 300m mark so fucked up the break line/100m line) so that rep was probably a few seconds slower) but 6’25 is what I have. The next km recovery was slower on purpose to try to go a bit harder in the last rep but not quite as slow as 4’06 b/c of the messed up split.

Went out too hard ~34 but then calmed down and was 1’32 at the half, so pretty much even split halves, though definitely not evenly split if you’d looked at every 200 or 400m. Finished in 3’03.9.

Total was 51’28 (3’25.9 avg). This is very good overall pace for this altitude – Daniels converts it to 3’09/km! Very pleased with this and a great last track session. One last medium progression run on Sunday, tuneup wednesday, travel thursday, race Sunday. Ready to go!

Also worth noting that it was unusually hot and sunny this morning. Probably 80F in the sun at least. Great extra (all natural) heat training.

Cooled down short barefoot on the grass 8’ and then had an impromptu pool party with the gang. Going to miss these bubs.

Total run 20km++

Time Split HR
1 m 3’22.6 (3’22.6) 154
2 m 6’42.0 (3’19.4) 165
3 m 9’58.4 (3’16.4) 168 (9’58.4)
4 m 13’49.4 (3’51.0) 159
5 m 17’07.8 (3’18.4) 164
6 m 20’24.8 (3’17.0) 168
7 m 23’40.3 (3’15.5) 165 (9’50.9)
8 m 27’33.2 (3’52.9) 156
9 m 30’48.9 (3’15.7) 167
10 m 34’00.6 (3’11.7) 169 (6’27.4)
11 m 37’52.4 (3’51.8) 155
12 m 41’06.9 (3’14.5) 160
13 m 44’17.6 (3’10.7) (6’25.2) – fucked up split, slower
14 m 48’23.7 (4’06.1)
15 m 51’27.6 (3’03.9) (3’03.9)

XT: Toes

3pm: Easy run around the park. Beautiful and sunny. Down to the park and around most of a big lap to the track, 4.5km in 19’ and then stopped and did 4x strides. Felt good on these, a bit tired. Continuing w/ the heat training until I can see a 5-day forecast for VCM, so wore tights, hat, gloves, 2x long sleeve, hoodie, jacket, buff. Yes, I know I look ridiculous. Going w/ the assumption it’s going to be a hot day even though now the forecast looks reasonable, but 10 days out is basically throwing darts.

Jogged up portugal to supermaxi to finish and grab groceries. Walked home. Total run 6km+ in 25’.

Viernes, 18 de Mayo, 2018 – 8am: A bit tired/sluggish on this one. Probably a bit overeager yesterday PM after the morning workout. Ran easy down to the park and 10km loop, 1 big lap in 16’15 and to the track 8km in 35’. Stopped and did 4x strides quite relaxed and then back home. Overdressing still. Total run 10km in 44’.

XT: Toes

3:30pm: Ran easy solo around the park. Felt much better than this morning – legs recover so quickly on this low mileage. 5km to the track in 21’ and then 4x strides which felt very good and jog home via portugal. Total run 6km+ in 25’.

Sabado, 19 de Mayo, 2018 – 7:30am: Easy longer single this morning in the metro. Felt great and beautiful early morning run. Big loop through the park and already under 4’50/km pace as I was leaving the park which is very fast in there. Stopped on a flat stretch of road in bellavista and did 6x strides and 200m (garmin’d) in 34.x. Felt really good overall and on the strides. Overdressed a ton as I have been every run and no problem. Total run 13km+ in 60’.

XT: Toes

PM: OFF – planned rest afternoon as I was at the Alta Andina soft launch all day. Fun afternoon w/ a lot of time on feet, though.

Domingo, 20 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 15km in 53’08 (3’32 avg) progression (18’24, 18’07, 16’33) w/ monster hill.

8:30am: Jogged down 2km to the Cruz del papa to meet Miki and then stood around for 25 minutes as he was super late as always. Was literally about to leave when he finally showed up. Dude!

Plan was to do only 15km today but quicker. Ideally I wanted to run ~3’40s down to 3’20s to avg around 3’30. This was on the ciclopaseo which is road here in Quito at 9,200 ft with one very large hill (~100m) in the middle but otherwise fairly flat.

We headed out feeling good and I had to push Miki to get the pace going early. Felt very comfy in the 3’30-40s on the flat-ish pavement but even by 2km the road starts to go up until the top of the hill around 6km. Ran by feel and effort was very good next few km including the two very hard km (4-6km) where the hill is steepest and most of the gain comes. Ran those 2km in under 8’00 which I have definitely never done before. Topped out at 6km and then it’s a rolling 1.5km to the turnaround. Felt very good knowing that the hardest part was already over.

Actively picked it up on the way back and was running much quicker even on the rolling km (3’36/3’29) and then blasted down the hill (3’06/3’13). Really used this energy and feeling good to maintain the higher cadence and we absolutely crushed the last 5km on the flat last 4km running <3’20s. Really, really strong running up here.

With 2km to go, Miki finally pushed ahead for the first time (I’d led every step so far) and got a couple of steps on me. I felt great but was pushing too hard to stay w/ him so actively backed off in the last km (3’26, slight uphill grade) as I wanted to save it for next week. It was a good confidence booster, though, because I knew I COULD go catch him if I wanted to but actively decided not to. He finished maybe 5 seconds ahead, all in the last 1200m or so.

I finished in 53’03 (3’32 avg) which is really good running on this route at this altitude. Moreover, this was another run where I felt like I really paced myself well. I felt great and relaxed at the beginning and crushed the last 30% feeling like I had a ton left. THIS is how I need to feel at 30-35km in the marathon!

No cooldown – just stretched in the sunshine and headed home. Pool and jacuzzi after.

(NB no overdressing for this one, just half-tights and a very thing longsleeve, which, I guess you could call overdressing as it was quite warm and sunny. Ran in Claytons.)

1 m 3’35.5 (3’35.5) 122
2 m 7’13.5 (3’38.0) 127
3 m 10’56.9 (3’43.4) 150
4 m 14’35.6 (3’38.7) 151
5 m 18’24.4 (3’48.8) 155 (18’24.4)
6 m 22’32.3 (4’07.9) 165 – big up
7 m 26’19.4 (3’47.1) 165
8 m 29’55.5 (3’36.1) 163
9 m 33’25.1 (3’29.6) 165
10 m 36’31.6 (3’06.5) 164 (18’07.2) – big down
11 m 39’44.6 (3’13.0) 172
12 m 43’03.4 (3’18.8) 171
13 m 46’21.7 (3’18.3) 172
14 m 49’38.4 (3’16.7) 173
15 m 53’05.1 (3’26.7) 175 (16’33.5)

XT: Toes

PM: OFF – Big going away party this afternoon. Teared up a bit as we had some (unexpected) speeches from Ryan, Greg, Franklin, me, Mariana, et al. Going to miss these bubs. But we’ll be back.