Weekly Summary – 115 miles in 14 runs. A great week of training before the final taper. Two very solid workouts – a 10K session and a marathon session – plus good mileage, strides, and short hills. Feeling great and ready for a great tune-up this coming week at Cleveland 10K and then Vermont City Marathon in less than 2 weeks!

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter (@TylerCAndrews). And, of course, don’t forget to check out STRIVE’s 2017 Programs! You can come do service work and train with me in Peru or Kenya and for 2017, we’ll once again have programs for High School and College students, and even a 10-day trip for adults and families, so be sure to take a look if you’re interested in an amazing summer experience! Finally, I have a few spots open for athletes looking for custom training plans and online coaching. Check out my site and email me if you’re interested!

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Lunes, 8 de Mayo, 2017 – 8am: Easy run around the hilly AR loop. Started out very slow (19’45 – slowest I’ve ever run that loop) and each one faster (19’00, 18’40), then over to the costco turf fields, 10x barefoot strides, run home. Much better by the end of the run. Very good. Also much cooler today, only in the 50s. Overdressed a lot to try to keep up the heat adaptation in case VCM is a warm one. Total run 11M++ in 80’.

XT: Back/hips

4pm: Easy shakeout around CC. Ran down to turf but right toe was split open again so no barefoot (at least without socks) for a few days. Ouch! Ran around CC with some stops for errands at the bank and CVS. Total run 4M- in 27’.

Martes, 9 de Mayo, 2017 – 8am: Easy run on the hilly AR loop. Felt much better this AM. Laps 18’40 and 18’10. Ran over to the costco field, 10x barefoot (sock foot) strides and then home. Total run 8.5M in 58’.

XT: p90x.

3:30pm: Easy run, 1 lap on AR hill (18’02) and then over to long bridge turf, 6x sockfoot strides, then home. Overdressing a lot with these cooler days, just in case. Total run 5.5M in 37’.

Miercoles, 10 de Mayo, 2017 – Sparknotes: 10km easy + 10x short hills

8am: Light hills day with track work tomorrow. Easy out/back on MVN (first time in a while), felt good, 4’00-15 no problem. Stopped at home and grabbed flats and then over to field, around the field to 10km and then drills, strides in flats. After, 10x short hills 13-14 seconds in tracers. Felt very good. Recovery by HR <120, 1’30-3’00, jogging/walking/standing. Ran the last one all the way to the top in 37 seconds, very good! Jogged home. Total run 9M+.

3:15pm: Easy run to Georgetown Sports Massage for session with Terrell. Good between-workouts-flushing with hills this morning and track tomorrow. Run felt fine, quicker as the run went on. Jogged to metro after. Total run 10km+ in 45’.

Jueves, 11 de Mayo, 2017 – Sparknotes: 5x1600m @ 4’43.6 avg w/ 1 lap surge from 800-1200 @ 68.4 avg. Rec 1’20-2’10. Rainy!

8am: Rainy workout this morning. Tried to get out early to beat the rain but didn’t make it. Ran to track and already raining by the time I got there. Did 5x good strides in tracers and then 200m to practice gear change in like 18.x/16.x.

Workout definitely felt harder than the last couple 10K workouts, but I’ll chalk that up mostly the the rain and some fatigue in the legs left over from Sunday. Goal was to run 5x1600m with a surge in the 3rd lap of each rep. I was hoping to average about the same pace (4’38-40) a I’ve run the last few workouts, but wasn’t quite able to do that today. I was consistently running 71.x for the non-surge laps and then the surge laps were in the 67-69 range.

I’d planned to take only about 80 sec jog but after the 3rd rep, I took a full easy jog lap as I was feeling super gassed and my HR wasn’t coming down quite enough in 80 sec. The last two felt much better after this and actually felt like I could have done one more.

Definitely harder than it looked on paper and slower than I expected to run, but a solid effort nonetheless. Time for some good recovery these next two days before the last big one on Sunday. Then we’re just two weeks out!

Total run 11M+.

Time Split HR Pace
800 m 2’23.1 (2’23.1) 174
400 m 3’32.7 (1’09.6) 176
400 m 4’44.0 (1’11.3) 176 (4’44.0)
rec m 6’06.1 (1’22.1) 163
800 m 8’29.1 (2’23.0) 174
400 m 9’36.7 (1’07.6) 180
400 m 10’48.8 (1’12.1) 180 (4’42.7)
rec m 12’09.1 (1’20.3) 169
800 m 14’33.1 (2’24.0) 175
400 m 15’41.0 (1’07.9) 181
400 m 16’53.5 (1’12.5) 179 (4’44.4)
rec m 19’05.7 (2’12.2) 161
800 m 21’29.4 (2’23.7) 173
400 m 22’38.0 (1’08.6) 181
400 m 23’50.3 (1’12.3) 180 (4’44.6)
rec m 25’21.7 (1’31.4) 166
800 m 27’45.5 (2’23.8) 173
400 m 28’53.8 (1’08.3) 181
400 m 30’03.8 (1’10.0) 181 (4’42.1)

3:30pm: Easy shakeout around CC. Nice shuffle to much smoother after a few km. Still rainy and in the 50s. Looks like we’re going to have this for a few days. Total run 4M- in 27’.

Viernes, 12 de Mayo, 2017 – 8am: Easy run on AR hill loop, 3 laps, to costco, 10x strides, home. Cool and drizzly again. Sunshine is coming back soon! Total run 10M+ in 70’.

XT: p90x.

3:15pm: Easy run to Georgetown Sports Massage. Good session loosening up a tight left quad/ankle. Much better after. Run was good, still drizzly and grey. Jogged to metro after and home. Total run 6.5M+, 10km+++ in 45’.

Sabado, 13 de Mayo, 2017 – 9am: Ran later after having some breakfast and watching Diamond League which happened to be on right as I woke up. Ran on HAR loop and felt very good out the door. One lap in 17’12 (!) which is the fastest I’ve run by a fair amount and that’s only first lap which is often slow (and not pushing at all). Very good sign. Ran over to 1km loop and ran 1600m in 5’03 w/ 1km very relaxed (3’19), 400m ~10K effort (72), 200m hard (31). Very good. Ran in trainers and overdressed still, so 2x long sleeve, tights, hat gloves, hoodie, jacket. Jogged home. Total run 10km in 37’.

XT: Hips

3:15pm: Easy run to GSM. Ran about as slow as I could comfortably and still running 4’20ish out the door. Cool still around 60F and windy (in my face the whole way). Felt good though and nice flushing from Terrell. Jog/metro home after. Total run 6.5M in 45’.

Domingo, 14 de Mayo, 2017 – Sparknotes: 36km in 1’58’42 (3’17.9/km avg) with 30km steady at 3’19/km, 6km acceleration in 19’11 (3’12/km avg).

Last (and really one of only two) marathon workouts this block. Goal was to do 30km steady at ~50K pace + 6km progression ~ MP to faster than MP for 36km total.

Had a great day for this one – too bad this is the ONE weekend I wasn’t racing. Left early and temps in the low 50s, very light wind. Ran this on the same MVN loop that I used for this same workout 10 days out from Albany. Felt very good yesterday so was confident going into this one.

Warmed up ~2km, stashed two nuun bottles, drills, strides, 200m at about 37.

Started out feeling VERY slow and relaxed (and it was, I ran 3’30 first km), but then was settled and ran right around 3’20 for the remainder. This is basically right where I expected to be. I figured that this pace would feel very slow after all the track work this block, and was pleased to find the first 15km or so really breeze by.

Not much to report until the end of lap 5 where I started having some stomach distress and so had to stop for a bathroom break and probably lost a minute or two. Still was feeling pretty good, though, so I don’t think it was a big impact.

I ran off the loop after lap 5 and ran up the 23rd st hill to simulate the big hill at VCM around mile 16 which was good, broke up the rhythm a bit but kept the focus. Finished at the 1km loop at about 29km and then ran the last 7km there.

Again, I think because of all the fast track work, I don’t have quite as much finesse over the pace, so tried to accelerate gradually but basically went right from 3’20 to 3’10 in that first km. Slowed down over the next 4km as I was both a bit tired and trying to back off a bit so I could accelerate for the last few km. This worked well as I then actually was able to do that, running 3’14/3’13/3’10 for the last 3k.

Overall it was 1’58’43 for 36km which is 3’17.9/km (2’19’0x marathon pace). That last 6km was 3’12/km avg.

So, about a minute and a half slower than when I ran it before Albany, but that is reasonable given that I’d been running a lot of long workouts at this pace leading up to that race. I think I’m comfortably in sub 2h20 shape and probably in 2h17-19 shape depending on the day and course. VCM is not as fast as Albany for sure, but if you add ~90 sec to my finishing time there and then maybe another minute or two for the course that’d be ~2’18’20-2’19’20 which would place favorably at VCM basically any year.

I do keep reminding myself that I won this race in 2014 when I was still a 65’/2h21 guy. I’ve looked over my log and the workouts I’m doing now are much stronger than those I was doing in the month leading up to VCM (and in the few months leading up to Boston that year).

Cooled down short home and then jogged to Costco and walked home with groceries. Total run ~41km, 25.5M.

Splits
5 km 16’48.0 (16’48.0) 156
10 km 33’14.0 (16’26.0) 160
15 km 49’53.0 (16’39.0) 164
20 km 1’06’23.0 (16’30.0) 165
25 km 1’22’52.0 (16’29.0) 166
30 km 1’39’31.0 (16’39.0) 166
31 km 1’42’41.1 (3’10.1) 172
32 km 1’45’52.6 (3’11.5) 173
33 km 1’49’05.9 (3’13.3) 173
34 km 1’52’20.0 (3’14.1) 173
35 km 1’55’33.0 (3’13.0) 175
36 km 1’58’42.7 (3’09.7) 177

4pm: Easy shakeout around longbridge. Felt good to shakeout, much better by the end. Beautiful out now, 70s and sunny but very windy. Ehio, ice bath, etc. Total run 2.5M, 4km in 19’.