Weekly Summary – 124 miles in 14 runs. A great “up” week – really my only higher mileage week between the 50K and Vermont City Marathon (read my announcement post here). A solid long run on the weekend and a great little fartlek during the week. Less than 2 weeks to go and it’s already time to taper!

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!

 

Lunes, 7 de Mayo, 2018 – 10am: Easy run solo around the park after a fairly intense day yesterday. Rainy and grey this morning – yuck. Legs didn’t feel too bad, though, and did 2 big laps (shortened because the grass was a swamp) in 15’29, 15’08.

Stopped at the track ~9.5km and did 6x strides and 200m in 33.9. Legs a bit tired on the top end but good to get moving a bit.

Jogged back home after. Total run 12km++ in 52’.

4:30pm: Easy run around the park. A bit of drizzle at the start, but not much. Park still a bit wet from AM showers. Legs felt pretty good and ran quicker, 1 big lap in 15’31 and then to the track, 8km in 34’10. Stopped and did 4x strides and then home easy. Total run 10km+ in 42’25.

XT: Toes

Martes, 8 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 10km fartlek (track) in 34’25 w/ 100m on, 100m off.

7am: Jogged down to the track to meet the boys for a light session this morning after a big day Sunday. Normal warmup and a few strides, ran in tracers.

Session was just me and Miguel today as JL and some others who didn’t race were doing a harder interval session. Miki and I just had a fartlek of 100m on, 100m off, with Miki doing 8km total and me doing 10km.

We traded off every two laps and felt pretty good overall. It felt kind of interminable for the first few km but then we got in a good rhythm. I split my watch every lap and we were very consistent around 82-83s per 400m w/ the on/off. Miki picked it up a lot on his last 800m which I didn’t go with because I still had 2km after that, but still held pace well for the last 2K by myself. Ran the last 500m as 200m, 100m jog, 200m just for kicks. Not super fast – last 200m was only like 35.

Total was 34’25 for 10km (3’26 avg).

Cooled down very slow barefoot around the grass and then home. Total run 19km.

5pm: Ran w/ Brittany in a lot of rain. Very easy pace and all on the bike path as the grass was super swampy. Nice to have company, though! Legs felt fine and ran the last half lap solo as she met me at the track. Finished with 4x strides and then home. Total run 10km in 46’.

Miercoles, 9 de Mayo, 2018 – 10am: Ran later after sleeping in and etc. Sunny, so headed up to the metro but still pretty muddy up there. Ran an alternate loop mostly on the main road and then out the north entrance. Ran down the hill on Eloy to the park afterward and then over to the track. Stopped and did 6x strides which felt quite good and 200m in 31. Jogged home after. Also worth noting that I’m trying to up the heat-acclimation game now (Jon says to prepare for a warm day at VCM) and so wore a long sleeve, hoodie, and jacket, plus hat and gloves and tights and it was pretty sunny. Definitely sweat a lot! Total run 16km in 1h18.

XT: Toes

4pm: Ran easy clockwork down to the park. Raining again – so much rain this week – and so stuck to the bike paths again for the most part. 1 (shortened) big loop in 15’36 and then to the track 8km in 34’50. 4x strides and then home. Total run 10km+ in 43’30.

XT: Toes

Jueves, 10 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: Canned workout. Planned 10x1K @ <3’00 and ran 3x1K at 3’05, ‘07, ‘13. Body felt really weak. Maybe sick.

7am: Jogged down to the track for what was supposed to be one of the harder sessions I’d do this block (10x 1K @ 2’55-3’00). Felt pretty normal on the warmup but started feeling pretty weak during the drills (extensive as always) and by the time we were doing strides, I just felt tired.

Did a good job of staying positive even through a rough first rep (3’05 when we were shooting for 3’00), but I told myself it was just because we went out too fast (33-34 for the first 200m). Next rep I led the first lap in 71-72, even, and felt good but then as Miki took over for the second half of the rep, I just couldn’t turn my legs over and was getting dropped. Surprised and frustrated and ran a big positive split for 3’07.

Almost stopped there but decided to give one more a go. Again led the first lap, this one felt harder and was 73 and then got toasted by Miki on the second lap and basically jogged in the last 100m for 3’13.

Frustrated but mostly just a good warning sign that I’m pushing my body pretty hard right now and I need to make sure I’m taking care of it. Of the two bigger workouts I’d hoped to do this week, this was by far the less important one, so I’m fine bailing and saving my bigger effort for Sunday.

Cooled down a bit solo on the grass and then home. Felt very tired and low energy.

Total run 13km.

3pm: Came home and slept a bunch more after the morning’s debacle. Definitely needed that. Also ate a bunch. I think a combination of overtired, underfueled, and maybe bordering on sick.

Ran earlier to try to avoid the PM rains that have been coming around 4-5pm, but ended up stuck in a massive thunderstorm anyway. Really frustrating day and in a bad place. Ended up just coming back home and running the rest of the run ~6.5km on the treadmill as the storm was very strong. Ran from 13kph to 15kph and then did 4x 30 sec surges at top speed (19.3 kph about 5’00/M). Total run 10km++ in 44’.

XT: Toes

Viernes, 11 de Mayo, 2018 – 9am: In bed for almost 12 hours last night. I guess I needed that.

Lovely sunny morning finally so ran up to the metro. A bit muddy but not too bad. Ran a big loop up there and down the road from the main entrance. About 11km to that point and then ran down to La Carolina for a 3 quarter lap to the track. Overdressed a lot for this one (tights, 2x long sleeve, hoodie, jacket, hat, gloves), so really warm and sweaty by the time I stopped at the track. 6x strides and 200m in 33.5 and then ran home. Total run 19km+ in 1h29.

XT: Toes

3pm: Easy run down to the park a bit earlier to beat the rain. Finally had an afternoon w/ sun and no raindrops! This rainy week has been soul-crushing.

Clockwork shakeout and legs felt pretty good. 1 big lap in 15’54 and then to the track, 8km in 34’30. Stopped and did 4x strides and then home. Total run 10km++ in 44’.

XT: Toes

Sabado, 12 de Mayo, 2018 – 9am: Easy run around the park w/ last longer effort tomorrow. Really overdressed for this one and body felt it. Warm and sunny and wore tights, hat, gloves, 2x long sleeve, hoodie, and jacket. HR quite high and perception of effort much higher to run much slower. Good mental training as well as physical training to remind myself how awful it feels to run when the body is overheating.

Did 2 big laps 16’48, 16’49 very slowly and then to the track. Stopped there and did 6x strides which actually felt quite good as I let the HR come down and then 200m in 32. Finished around the track and to the juice lady by portugal and walked back from there. Total run 12km++ in 54’.

XT: Toes

4:30pm: Spent the day in the valley w/ Greg, Dave, his kids, Salome, Julia, and Garret and his family. Lovely day and got a run in on the Chaquiñan while they were getting some food. Somehow forgot to pack shorts, so ran just in tights – oops – and long sleeve, jacket, hat, gloves. Out/back from Cumbaya park area. Felt good but kept pace very easy this PM. Nowhere really to do strides as there is hardly 1m of flat ground on Chaqui so just ran back. Total run 10km+ in 44’.

XT: toes.

Domingo, 13 de Mayo, 2018 – Sparknotes: 36km in 2h22 (3’57 avg) on extremely hilly Chaquiñan (7,700 ft), alst 16km solo.

8:30am: Bit of a production meeting up and getting to the trail (as always, with this crew). Wasn’t until 5am this morning that we decided what time we were meeting. Miguel said he’d pick Brittany and I up at 07:20 and it was about 07:45 when he finally pulled up. Surprise!

Drove down to the valley and parked and met up with Jose Luis and Marco and a few others. Plan was for them to do 26km and for me to do 34-36 (2h20 total). I figured I would do their 26km with them and then tack on another 10km or so.

We had one of Miguel’s many relatives on the bike w/ us which was nice as we were able to get some fluids during the run and it was a bit warm, despite being cloudy.

Started off relaxed but quickly settled into a pace in the 3’50s. This trail is very hard as it has almost not a single flat meter. A steep downhill 2.5km leads to a long rolling uphill until it tops out around 11km. So we were running 3’50s uphill on this part for an uphill 8+ km. I definitely felt like it was a solid effort – I’d hoped to run a bit more relaxed and then close hard, but seemed like these guys wanted to be a bit more aggressive in the first half.

At 11km, the trail heads down into the canyon and we ran to 13K and then turned back. It’s also worth noting that the whole run had no full stops (i.e. never stopped running or stopped the watch).

Ran back and still felt pretty comfortable despite there being a lot of run left. Tried to compartmentalize and just focus on this “back” section w/ the guys. Nice to get to 11km and have the long rolling downhill on the way back, but there are always more little steep ups than I remember.

Around km 5 (to go), Miki took off and I they were basically running to the barn. I didn’t even try to go w/ them as I still had 15km to go, but they absolutely crushed the last 5km and I couldn’t even see them within a couple minutes.

So, ran solo at that point and tried to just focus on maintaining effort. The last 2km up back up to the start are extremely brutal but got there and Miki gave me my nuun bottle and then headed back out. 20 more quarters.

I’d hoped to accelerate a bit int his last 10km but the quicker first 26km took more out of me than I expected, so just worked to maintain pace. Going back up the hill from 2.5km to about 4km was really tough and slow but made it up and turned around and came back down well, running in the 3’40s the last few km. Finished with very tough uphill but faster than I’d run the first time.

Overall, a very tough run. I’d expected to run a bit faster but running 2h22 on this type of terrain at 7700 ft is very hard. I actually think this trail is harder than running on the ciclopaseo (paved) in Quito at 9,300 ft because the hills are so unrelenting and the surface (rocky) is so much harder on the feet and ankles.

Got back to the start and everyone else had left so drank a lot and grabbed an uber home. Felt extremely nauseated for some reason and felt like I was going to boot in the car. Had some saltines when I got home and that seemed to help.

Total run 36km in 2’22’26 (3’57 avg).

4:30pm: Easy shakeout around the park. Missed the rains luckily but the park was a bit wet still. Very slow as legs and feet were a bit sore from the AM. 1 big lap in 17’15 and then to the park 8km in 38’. Did 4x strides VERY relaxed, just to get the legs moving and open up a bit and then ran back home via portugal. Stopped at Sushi-in and got some dope ramen which really hit the spot tonight. Had dinner on the roof and watched a spectacular cloud-clear-dusk-falling and felt extremely content. Wonderful day.

Total run 10km in 47’.