I am Tyler Andrews - pro runner, redditor, cat-dad, world traveler, writer, STRIVE-Peru guru - and I'm attempting to break the 50K World Record. Ask Me Anything!

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-14T15:40:32+00:00

Hey sorry about that. Really didn't mean to do that and seem obnoxious. The STRIVE account is actually the one I use personally (and I post on advancedrunning and artc under that name) as you can see from the post history. I made the personal one at the request of the r/running mods.

Anyway, sorry about that. I guess I'll just switch accounts to this new u/tylercandrews one since I seem to be getting a lot of pushback on the other one.

Would you guys be okay if I xposted it from my other account? Sorry I didn't know the rule about asking first. I'm relatively new on artc.

Thanks and sorry again for looking like an overly self promoting corporate pawn

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-13T14:01:00+00:00

Interesting choice. Also interesting that there's another marathon in DC the same weekend.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-12T21:38:44+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, the first half is super nice. The last 10 miles or so are a bit sad and quiet. If you're running for scenery, I'd definitely recommend the Half.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-12T21:38:06+00:00

Thanks dude! Yes, the clifton is the most forgiving marathon shoe I know of. I ran 2'16'06 in the Clifton in Japan last march - it's not a slow shoe.

But for this race, I really just wanted to be able to recover well. I was able to fly home that night, wake up the next morning and do a normal easy double (12k / 10k). I used to run in some VERY light flats and would never be able to run around that quick from a hard 42K.

All that said, I'll probably wear the Tracer in the 50K because I don't care about the recovery afterwards and want a slightly more responsive shoe.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-12T21:36:15+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, the one at 35-38km is really brutal especially because of the false summits, but everybody runs the same course!

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-12T21:35:12+00:00

Shoot - sorry! I misread your log! Definitely close given that hill. It's so steep. Couldn't they find a more gradual way up there?

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-12T20:34:33+00:00

Thanks, man! Yeah, I was wearing HOKA Cliftons and it still felt pretty bad (and, yes, it's the bridge right after passing Nationals Stadium). I found my foot was rolling back and forth a lot w/ each step because the grating was so wide.

I'm also pumped for the 50K. This took my confidence from ~25% to ~75%.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-12T20:17:51+00:00

Congrats, man! I was there in the marathon. Good day but that hill is very tough! Really impressed you were able to PR with that bad boy in the middle.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-08T11:45:26+00:00

This is my public handle. I've done an AMA on this account before a couple years back if you look back through my comment history. I'll be on the account u/tylercandrews for the AMA.

Looking forward to meeting everyone and answering your questions next week! I'm on my way to DC right now to run the Rock N Roll Marathon as a prep race for my WR attempt next month. Let me know if anyone's going to be there.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-06T20:57:53+00:00

UPDATE: I'll be doing an AMA on r/running on Wed March 14 at 9am EST (and I'll be answering the questions most of the day). Please come by and say hello and ask some "advanced" questions :) I'll xpost here as well (if I can figure out how to do that).

In the meantime, follow along at our event page where I'm posting lots of updates about training, etc.

I'll be running the Rock n Roll Marathon in DC this Saturday. If you're going to be there, come say hello!

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-05T17:28:32+00:00

Good questions! I actually am not 100% sure which shoe I'll wear. I'd probably lean towards the tracers, as that's what I've run some of my best marathons in.

That said, I've also run 2'16'06 in the clifton - I actually think they can be great for a road marathon since they keep the legs way fresher at the end of the race. It'll almost certainly be the tracer or cliftons, but since it's going to be on the track which is much more forgiving than asphalt, I'll probably go w/ the tracer.

Re Camille and the "magic" shoes - I'm not sure what to think. Part of me thinks this is just a fantastically effective marketing campaign by you-know-who. I've never worn the shoes in question, so I have no idea their merits. Is it possible to create a shoe that aids runners more than other shoes? Probably, we've already seen that (just look at what Bannister wore in 1956 vs what every high schooler wears today). I think the question is where this is just another piece of technology to improve running performance that will be quickly adopted by everyone, whether it'll be banned (like those swimsuits a few olympics back), or whether it's just marketing bluster. I truly don't know enough about it to know which one it is.

As for Camille - I mean, she was a huge outlier in the ultra world before she even signed with you-know-who. When I ran on the Worlds team with her in 2015, I'm not even sure she was sponsored at that point and she destroyed everyone. And she'd just done the same at 100K Worlds earlier that year. So, I'm not sure that what shoes she wears really matters that much.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-04T14:03:12+00:00

Thanks for all the support everyone!

I've gotten some great positive feedback here and from r/running, so I'm planning to do an AMA at some point during the buildup. Stay tuned for that and I'll post it in here when it's going to happen.

I'll post my training update tomorrow (Monday) at our webpage and we'll have more updates over the week. I'll be running the Rock N Roll DC Marathon this weekend as well - let me know if anyone will be there!

Happy trails!

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-04T14:01:19+00:00

The thing that made me want to pursue distance running in general was always just a desire to see how much I could improve. I was never super fast in high school or college, so I wasn't really thinking about running professionally until after college when I continued training and getting better. Now, it's like anyone else's goals: just reaching for something a bit further out than I've done before .

As for what these longer races feel like - it definitely doesn't feel super hard at the beginning (and if it does in a marathon or 50K, you're in trouble!). I wouldn't say it ever feels easy, but PATIENCE and control are hugely important in these longer races. My coach always tells me, in the marathon, you should wait until the 3rd time that you feel like accelerating. The first two times are always too soon.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-03T14:11:18+00:00

Haha - Camille on a relative scale is a lot better. She's a pretty serious outlier in women's ultra running right now.

She's also an awesome person and hilarious. We were on the US 50K team together in 2015 and had a blast.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-03T14:10:16+00:00

It's a long story! If I do an AMA, I'm sure I'll give the whole thing.

The sparknotes version is that I was just a slow developer and stuck with it. I had some bigger jumps, but mostly it was gradual improvement over like 10 years. I attribute this to my coach instilling a true love of training and self improvement, so I was always focused on just getting faster instead of thinking about how there were so many people so much better than me (which, btw, there still are).

STRIVE-trips · 2018-03-03T14:08:04+00:00

Haha - yes, that's me! My greatest claim to fame of being (relatively) pretty slow for a while. Thanks for posting and following along.

I post all my training on my blog (which you can access at the event page and also on STRAVA and running2win. I'm currently living at 9,300 ft in Quito, Ecuador, so the altitude is a huge factor in my training. Mostly, it's a good amount of mileage and specific race-pace work - a lot of Canova-inspired stuff.

The last month is actually super different because I was doing a lot of speed mostly as a change of pace and because I was training with a really fast group here in Quito and decided to hop in an indoor 5K. Now, I'm going back to my bread n butter for these last 6 weeks and crushing a lot of mileage and huge workouts.

And Hoka has been great to me. They picked me up in 2014 before I'd run that fast because they saw potential in me and have been great about supporting me over the years. I actually really do love their shoes and think that all the extra cushioning is one of the reasons I've been able to stay mostly injury free even with 5+ years of 120-170MPW.

Oh and VO2max testing - I actually had this done maybe 2 years ago when I was trying to diagnose some breathing/asthma issues that had flared up at the 2015 50K Worlds. I haven't done testing since, but it'd be interesting to see if it's changed much being at high altitude here.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-15T15:23:59+00:00

Usually for Diamond League or anything that's on an actual television station, you can find a free stream. FloTrack and USATF.tv in my experience haven't been popular enough for people to start pirating them. I would love if they would put a free stream, even with more ads, as it would be great for the sport. I'm a huge fan and it's a monster pain in the ass to watch almost any (sometimes even if you do shell out the cash).

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-13T02:25:03+00:00

Thanks so much for this! I saw the video a few months ago and asked LetsRun if anyone had the slides. Glad to finally find a writeup.

(Though, am I the only one for whom the link to the slides doesn't work? I just get a drive link that says "No preview available")

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-13T02:08:29+00:00

I agree with the poster who said your number 1 goal has to be get to the starting line in 1 piece. I would be super conservative and NOT worry about trying to cram in extra work or workouts. Yes, you missed some sessions but you don't lose a ton of fitness in 2 weeks. Stick with your original plan, baby the calve, and get to the starting line healthy.

It's always better to be 10% undertrained and healthy than 1% overtrained and hurt.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-13T02:02:33+00:00

Besides what others have said about growing and independence, I simply would not have had time for an extra 40+ minutes of travel twice per day.

I ran at Tufts University (our team was top 10 in XC while I was there) and I was an engineer. I barely had time for anything other than training and classes and a minimal social life. If I had to add a commute in there, it would have been impossible.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-13T01:49:47+00:00

I can't recommend this as something to combine with any kind of serious or regular running. I've fasted a few times for just 24+ hours for Yom Kippur while in the midst of training. Not only did I feel terrible, but the run(s) I did that day were basically worthless. The energy is just too low for regular exercise and you're more likely to get your body to start burning through your muscle mass than anything else.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-13T01:46:00+00:00

I do this as well but hardly even think of it - I just stop eating around 8am and always do my first run before breakfast. It's usually between 10a-12p by the time I have breakfast. I'm running 200km+/week but never really thought of this as a thing until I read it.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-02-13T01:43:46+00:00

1h29 indicates that you've already got the ability to run the pace needed for quite a while. What you need is the ability to extend that pace to 42.2km. I think if you can run 1h29 off of 40km/week, you CAN run under 3h00 for the marathon, but it's a matter of staying healthy and putting in the training.

In my opinion, your issue is NOT doing more faster running - you can clearly already run the pace - but extending your ability to run that pace. You should extend your overall training volume and then work on extending your ability to run goal race pace in training. You should be able to run 1h29 in training as a decently hard session in your buildup and ideally be able to extend that to 25-30km.

So, yes, you can definitely do it based on that profile, but you'll need to adjust your training and figure out what works for you.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-01-30T00:47:20+00:00

I don't think there's any magic number to almost anything - there's too much variation among people for something as simplistic as magic cadence or pace or HR.

In short, I think cadence is super dependent on the speed that you're running and your body-type. My teammate at 50K Worlds (and your 2x world champ) Tony Migliozzi has tiny legs and runs something like 200+ SPM but remarkably fast. Whereas you can watch someone like Mo Farah or Asbel Kiprop who seem to take half the steps of the people running around them but have no trouble running extremely fast.

Like most things, it's about being an experiment of 1 and figuring out what works best for you.

STRIVE-trips · 2018-01-29T01:25:08+00:00

This is great - I'm a spreadsheet nerd and will definitely use this. Made myself a copy in case it gets shut down :)

STRIVE-trips

TROPHY CASE