Weekly Summary – 75 Miles in 11 runs. Victory again at the Vermont City Marathon! 3 for 3 and ran w/ the huevos this time, going out in 68-low to break open the field and hanging on to finish in 2h17 for the second fastest time ever on this course. That’s a wrap on the spring season.

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 (starting in less than a month!) 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!

3 for 3 and we’ll call that a season.

Lunes, 21 de Mayo, 2018 – 8:30am: Ran late after getting up early but getting a bunch of work done and waiting for it to get a bit warmer. Headed up to the metropolitano for what will likely be my last run there. Beautiful morning w/ the sun out and fog lifting. Felt good and ran about the same pace as Saturday on pretty much the same loop. Legs felt good. Wore a ton of layers as usual – 3x shirts, hoodie, jacket, hat/gloves/tights. Finished w/ 4x strides and 200m on the road in 34. Jogged home easy. Total run 12km in 56’.

XT: Toes

3:00pm: Easy run around the park. Didn’t feel too bad from one meal of CHO depletion. Easy 4km to the track and then 4x strides. Still overdressing as the forecast looks warm for Sunday. Jogged home via portugal. Total run 5km++ in 22’.

XT: Toes

Martes, 22 de Mayo, 2018 – 7am: Ran down to the stadium w/ Mariana – first run we’ve done together in a while – and then met up with the guys. Just came by to say “hasta luego” and “thanks” as I had an easy run but wanted to see everyone one more time before I was off. Ran around the grass outfield for the most part, took some photos w/ the group, and then headed home via Eloy. Beautiful sunny morning and great to see the gang one last time. Will miss this crew. Total run 10km+ in 46’.

XT: Went up Pichincha w/ Mar and Julia. Beautiful morning w/ a good amount of walking and time on feet. Very tired and faint by the end as I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before and didn’t get back until almost 13:00.

3:30pm: Easy shakeout. Definitely feeling the depletion and fatigue by now. Ran down the hill to drop Greg’s suit off and then same loop as yesterday around the park. Thunder in the distance but it all headed south, so ended up w/ great weather. 4km to the track in 19’ and then 4x strides which actually didn’t feel as bad as I’d expected. Finished easy home via portugal. Total run 5km++ in 23’.

XT: Toes

Miercoles, 23 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 5km (track) in 16’53 w/ 3x [1km @ 3’12-14, 500m @ 1’53-55] + 500m @ 1’30.

7am: Last tuneup morning! A bit of a headache this morning but had black coffee, some PB, and some caff nuun and felt pretty decent out the door. Waking up early naturally and feeling good.

Jogged to the stadium, kind of a gross morning drizzly and cool. Weird. Supposed to meet Franklin at the track but he didn’t show b/c of the rain. About 2km warmup, drills, 2x strides only to mimic marathon start.

Ran in tracers (and tights and a longsleeve).

Workout is the same I do for all of my long-race tuneups, 5km continuous w/ 1km at ~MP, 500m moderate, repeated 3 times and then finishing w/ 500m faster. At sea level the 1Ks are usually at MP and the 500s are only about 20-30s/km slower, so up here I wanted to still try to run the 1Ks at MP and just take the recovery easier. I figured about 4’00/km pace.

Felt much better than I expected. Really tried to start out easily and thought I’d run ~3’20 but ended up negative splitting for 3’14. Rec was also quicker (1’55) than I’d thought it might be. Next rep was similar (3’13.9) w/ 1’54 rec. Picked it up a bit on the second half of the last rep to run like 1’37/1’34 for 3’11.8. Again 1’53 for the rec and then tried to close it down faster. Went out around 35.x for the first 200m but didn’t have the turnover to pick it up anymore and finished in 1’30.9. I’ve closed much faster than that at sea level, but this is the first time I’ve successfully done this workout here, so I was very pleased overall.

Total was 16’53 for 5K.

Jogged short about 3km around the track and home to cool down. Pretty doot by the end.

Total run 10km++

Splits
1.0 km 3’14.1 (3’14.1) 130
1.5 km 5’09.4 (1’55.3) 133
2.5 km 8’23.3 (3’13.9) 142
3.0 km 10’16.8 (1’53.5) 151
4.0 km 13’28.6 (3’11.8) 153
4.5 km 15’22.3 (1’53.7) 152
5.0 km 16’53.2 (1’30.9) 154

1:15pm: Last depleted run! And last Carolina run! So sad.

Really sunny and warm so ran earlier (and plus I figured I’d only feel worse as the afternoon wore on). Felt surprisingly not too terrible. Didn’t have as many layers (only on the torso, 3x shirts and a jacket) as most of my clothes were in the laundry to be packed so maybe that helped. To the track 4km+ in 18’30 and then 4x strides which felt not too bad actually and then easy to portugal. Total run 5km++ in 23’.

XT: Toes.

Jueves, 24 de Mayo, 2018 – 4:15: Rough night as expected. Trouble sleeping and woke up a lot. Finally around 3:15 got up and had some animal crackers as I knew I’d want to give myself a bit of time to digest before sneaking in my pre-travel run. Felt better and dozed a bit and then woke up naturally a bit before 4am. Waited in bed until RP’s feeder went off so he wouldn’t go crazy when I walked out. Had some black coffee and then went down to the gym and ran on the treadmill. Wore the only clothes I had left at that point which were long shorts, mariana’s long sleeve, a cotton t-shirt, another longsleeve, and my ecaudor jacket. Definitely started to overheat a lot as HR was really high. Ran from ~4’50/km-> 3’55/km. Machine pooped out after about 13 minutes as it was being run through a normal powerstrip – jesus – and so plugged it into the floor and then it was fine.

Slowed down in the last 15-20’ as HR/effort felt very high from 3’55-> ~4’10/km for the last few km. Finished at 10km in 41’.

PM: Travel Quito-Panama-Boston. Very smooth travels so far, easy drive to UIO, through security, big breakfast at the lounge, second small breakfast on the plane to PTY. A couple hours in PTY to get to the lounge, have some fruit and yogurt, make a couple calls and get back to the gate. Longer 5.5 hour flight PTY to BOS but easy and nobody next to me, so had tons of space. Got some sleep, watched “The Big Short”, did a lot of work, and got in on time. Uber out to Concord and in bed shortly after 9pm. Long day but fairly easy overall. About 14.5 hours door to door.

Viernes, 25 de Mayo, 2018 – 6:30am: Woke up surprisingly early (probably due to early sunrise) and ended up talk w/ my dad for a while before heading out. Drove to Emerson field and ran out/back on the Concord Lumber trail. Felt very good and ran from about 4’20-> 3’50s on the way back. Absolutely beautiful morning w/ clear blue skies, perfect early morning light, birds chirping, etc., etc.

Stopped at the track and changed into racing shoes (EVO racer) and did drills and a couple strides in those. Then did 1km accelerating w/ 400m ~MP (76.x), and then each 200m faster, something like 35.x, 33.x, 32.x for 2’57. Good! Easy jog to finish up. Total run 8km in 32’.

XT: Toes

6:15pm: Very long and busy (but productive) day. Spent the morning touring apartments in Cambridge, dropping off the tent at UPS, and then finally hitting the road in the heat of Memorial Day Weekend traffic northbound to Vermont. Stopped a few times but felt very long. Stopped in Mont Pelier to go to TD bank and finally made it to Burlington around 6pm. Ran solo from downtown as the folks were having dinner. Felt pretty awful first km but then something clicked on and was absolutely crushing: 3’46, 3’55, 3’25 (!). This was out/back on the last stretch of the course on the bikepath along the lake. Beatufiul early evening run. Stopped and did 4x strides on the pavement which felt just OK and then jogged back up the hill. Total run 6km in 23’.

XT: Toes

Sabado, 26 de Mayo, 2018 – 9am: Ran w/ meet n greet group from Battery Park in Burlington. VERY slow pace ~5’30/km, but who cares as it’s pre race day and nice to meet some folks. Ran the first 5km of the course and then stopped and did 3x strides which felt EXCELLENT. Talked for a while w/ a few folks including a conversation in Spanish w/ woman from the D.R. who’s running for special olympics. Jogged up to meet the VC and stretch in the park. Total run 6km in 32’.

PM: OFF – relaxing morning/early afternoon lounging around the hotel and then headed over to the expo around 3pm to hang out in the HOKA booth for an hour or so before the tech meeting. Dropped bottles off and hung around there. Ate dinner at 4:30p and then headed back here and just relaxed w/ the lights off and was asleep by about 8:30p.

Domingo, 27 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: Vermont City Marathon, 1st, 2’17’44 (68’10, 69’34). Ran with balls.

 

Full Race Recap here