Weekly Summary – 114 miles in 13 runs. Weird week w/ a (hopefully) minor achilles twinge that popped up mid-week and kept me on the elliptical for one workout and then messed things up over the week. Really looking forward to getting into a good routine as this has been my most inconsistent buildup in a while.

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 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.

Lunes, 10 de Septiembre, 2018 – 10:15am: Slept late and ran late and longer single after a very tiring weekend. Felt pretty bad and ran slow. Really windy and kind of shitty out. Did big river loop and then 4x strides which were really slow. Legs did not feel good today. Total run 20km++ in 1h32.

XT: Glutes (10x), toes

15:15: Easy run on grass after lots of pavement this weekend. Legs felt better. Some rain and cold. Rt Achilles started bugging me near the end and really did on strides, a bit concerning. 4x strides. Total run 10km+ in 44’.

Martes, 11 de Septiembre, 2018 – 09:00: Ran big river loop. Felt pretty bad. Rt. achilles still bothersome and seems to be irritated by shoes.  Ran some barefoot at the end for strides and that seemed to help. Much better. Finished w/ 4x strides on turf and that was no problem. Total run 19km in 80′.

XT: Glutes (10x), toes

16:30: Jogged down to fields and ran barefoot on grass. Running feels fine just shoes are the issue. Didn’t want to overdo it since I haven’t run barefoot in a while so did 4km, 6x strides, and then short jog to finish up and walk back. Total run 5km+ in 22’.

XT: Pull ups (8, 8, 7, 5)

Miercoles, 12 de Septiembre, 2018 – Sparknotes: 20km Fartlek in 64’59 (3’15/km) w/ 7×1600 @ 4’50-5’10, 3x1K @ 3’00 w/ 400-500m mod rec + 5x200m @ 31-33. Not continuous.

09:00 Ran down to grass, achilles still bothering me so did the whole run barefoot on turf. Felt good, just the shoe was bugging the attachment still. Legs felt good though. Finished w/ 4x barefoot strides. Total run 10km+ in 44’.

XT: Glutes (5x), toes

16:00: After testing shoes, decided that I wouldn’t be able to run the track workout today, so decided to do a warmup/cooldown outside on grass and then the “workout” cross train. Did 5km + strides and jog back for 6km total and then hopped on the elliptical. Did basically the same workout but by effort/RPM on the elliptical. Did 25x [ 75” on, 45”] off (relatively similar to 400m on, 200m quick recovery), keeping the RPM over 100 for the 75” and around 80 for the 45”. This was actually a great workout. Mentally it was really good to have such clear immediate feedback w/r/t the RPM. It was also good in that it was yet another workout where I kind of kept negotiating w/ myself in terms of effort. E.g. if I’d done this on the track, I probably would have done sets of 10, 10, 5 or something. But I got to 10x and then said, okay, let’s go to 15x and then we’ll take a longer break. And then I got to 15x and and same thing until 20x and it was just the last 5x. These were very hard but I had it and surprised myself a bit.

Took about 3’ recovery (walking) and then did 3’30 very hard (same effort that I’d been doing, 100+ RPM). This was again very good mentally as the last 75” rep had been super hard, but I just got myself through it bit by bit and held on well. Really good stuff.

Also worth noting that I was wearing tights and a hoodie for this – I find I have to overdress to get my HR high enough in the gym.

Changed into dry clothes and then went out and cooled down. Wore shoes (cavus) w/ laces barely tied which seemed to feel all right for easy running. Got Anna’s on the way back.

Total run was 10km, total “mileage” if you count the 55’ on elliptical is probably like 26km.

XT: Pull-ups, 8, 8, 8, 7.

Jueves, 13 de Septiembre, 2018 – 09:00: Finally figured out a way to run w/ this weird achilles issue w/ shoes on. Did some serious surgery to an old pair of cliftons and cut out a big chunk of the back heel and that seemed to do it. Can now tie it tight enough that I can run comfortably in it but it’s not touching the hotspot. Did a bit on the bike and then treadmill to test it out but all good. Ran big river loop after that. Achilles felt noticeable but not bad. Cloudy again – can’t wait for some sun.

Finished w/ 4x strides on the track. Total run 20k in 1h25.

XT: Glutes, 10x, toes

17:30: Ran down to the river to meet Bryan G who I haven’t seen in forever. Nice to run w/ company and foot feeling pretty good (w/ modified shoe). Ran river loop. Beautiful late afternoon/early evening. Can’t complain about weather on days like today. Felt good and finished up at the track w/ two laps, the second at 76.0 feeling pretty controlled. 4x strides and then jog back. Total run 15km in 63’30.

XT: Pedestal, 7’ w/ 10x lifts

Viernes, 14 de Septiembre, 2018 – 09:00: Achilles most of the way there today so will try to work out w/ Jonas tomorrow. Still felt it a bit but seems to be getting better. Big River loop, finished w/ 4x strides. Total run 20km in 1h22.

XT: Glutes 10x, toes

16:00: Easy run on fields. Achilles seems good. Nice day. Finished w/ 4x strides on track. Total run 10km+ in 43’.

Sabado, 15 de Septiembre, 2018 – Sparknotes: 20km Fartlek in 64’59 (3’15/km) w/ 7×1600 @ 4’50-5’10, 3x1K @ 3’00 w/ 400-500m mod rec + 5x200m @ 31-33. Not continuous.

08:00: Ran down to the Harvard track to meet Jonas for the morning’s session. The plan was to do 10-12x1600m on the track. Felt pretty good on the warmup (in Cavus) and then ran a few light strides and 200m in 35.x which felt very comfy.

Ended up being kind of a shit-show. The Harvard women’s track team was on the track and using all 8 lanes and couldn’t give us the <1 m we needed to run by every 72 seconds or so. So, we got through two reps which felt really good (4’50, 4’54) and then got through about 150m before we got kicked off. Damnit. So, then we tried to run on this loop around the outside of the fields which I thought would be okay but was really loose rock on the back part around the fields which did not feel good at all to run on, but we still ran 5’05 despite having to come to a literal full stop to make our way through a little gate. So, we ended up just running out onto the 4M-ish loop we used for the fartlek a couple weeks ago on the river. I felt okay through the first rep (4’56) but then the achilles was bugging me more and I could just feel I was altering my form a bit and not getting any power out of my right side. I did one full loop w/ Jonas (3 reps) but ran like shit, like 5’10s, and so just ran back to Harvard. Luckily, I’d brought the CRs so changed into those and they felt better as they have a much lower back than the Cavu and was able to get back onto the track, so did 3x1K there in about 3’00 w/ 400m jog. These felt much better and I felt like I could have gone a bit longer but was at about an hour of work, so decided to stop since the achilles clearly wasn’t 100%. Did 5x200m to finish up w/ 200m jog which felt good and were fairly relaxed (33->31).

Total work was 64’59 but w/ a good deal of stoppage time.

Finished w/ easy run home in the CR since the Cavu was still bugging me. Total run 29km.

17:30: Drove down to the aptly named Mountainville, NY for the #ThisRandIsMyRand wedding festivities. Got to the airbnb and everyone else had run so ran solo out/back on the very hilly main road – a bit busy, but not too bad. Ran quicker than I expected and achilles felt okay but not great. The road is very crowned and the hills don’t seem to be helping. Kept it short at 8km w/ no strides. Total run 8km+ in 33’.

Domingo, 16 de Septiembre, 2018 – 09:00: First off, happy wedding day to fellow ‘13 Jumbos Matt Rand and Heather Theiss! Second, holy shit what a run by Kipchoge at Berlin this AM. It is both inspiring and extremely humbling/makes me feel like a sad waste of human existence/space knowing that another human being on this planet can run 4.25 x sub-29’ 10Ks and I would LOVE to run one.

Anyway, ran w/ a big TUXC squad: Cliff, Jerzy, Connor, Luke, Adam, Sam, Jeff, Scott, Wheeler. Achilles didn’t feel fantastic and felt much worse after the run, I think due to how extremely hilly it was. We ran very slowly, over 5’00/km to start and picked it up to maybe 4’30s by the end. Funny run to be back w/ the guys but wish the achilles wasn’t such a bummer. Finished and was glad I wouldn’t have time to double b/c there was no way I would be running given how it felt. Ugh. Hope a day or two off and it will fully heal. Total run 16km in 76’.

PM: Fun times at Matt’s wedding! Great day celebrating w/ the guys and seeing a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time. Fairly light night w/ an early wake-up to get home in time for Mar’s class tomorrow.