About Hometown Hopefuls Hometown Hopefuls follows Atlanta Track Club Elite Team members Abe Alvarado, Brandon Lasater, Keturah Orji, Yolanda Ngarambe, Jarryd Wallace and Allie Wilson as they continue their journey toward Olympic glory. Be there every step of the way from training camp to the Olympic Trials and to Tokyo with every workout, every split, athlete reflections and coaches' comments too. Six athletes. Six months. Six shots.
Ngarambe reflects on her training period between April 19 - May 2 in this post. To learn more about Ngarambeclick here.
Workouts for the Week: April 19-25
Monday:
AM: 40 minutes easy bike
PM: 3 mile run
Tuesday:
AM: 40 minutes easy bike
PM: 2 mile run
Wednesday:
AM: 80 minutes pool
PM: 20 minutes bike + Lift
Thursday:
60 minutes pool (10 x 3min on/1min off)
Friday:
AM: 70min pool (6 x 5min on/1min off + 10 x 30sec on/30sec off)
PM: 30 min bike + Lift
Saturday:
AM: 60 minutes bike (10 x 50sec on/40sec off + 5min-4min-3min-2min-1min + 5 x 1min on/1min off)
PM: 40 minutes easy bike
Sunday:
AM: 75 minutes bike [2 x (7.5min-5min-4min-3min-2min-1min) with 1 minute recovery]
PM: Lift
Commentary and Reflection of the Week: April 19-25
Tried running in the beginning of the week, but it didn’t really go that well. Started working out with Ricky this week, and that’s been really nice. Makes a huge difference mentally meeting someone for the pool and bike workouts. Saw Dr. Mason this week as well to make sure that I didn’t have a tear or damage to the achilles. I’ve also been seeing a lot of PT’s lately - working on calf strength mostly - which seems to have been the reason for my achilles flaring up to this extent.
Commentary and Reflection From Coaches Amy and Andrew Begley of the Week: April 19-25
Yolanda continues to deal with a sore Achilles tendon. We tried to run early in the week, and the first attempt was unsuccessful. The second attempt was not as good, and she had to stop after a couple of miles.
As a result, we had her go to the doctor and she had an MRI done on her lower leg. We need to get some answers so we can get her back on track. The cross training is going well, but the fitness you gain from cross training doesn’t 100% translate into running fitness. She is more fit than she was a few weeks ago, but she will start to lose more of the running specific part of her fitness the longer she cannot run.
We are worried at this point, but we are getting into crunch time on getting ready to prove fitness, so she is selected for the Olympics by the Swedish Olympic Committee.
Workouts for the Week: April 26-May 2
Monday:
AM: 60 minutes pool [5 x (1 on/1 off) + 5 min + 5 x (1 on/1 off)] + core
PM: 15 x 1 min run/1 min walk
Tuesday:
60 minutes pool (12 x 2min on/1min off)
Wednesday:
AM: 60 minutes bike [3 x (3min on/1min off) + 10 x (1min on/1min off) + 4 x (30sec on/30sec off)] + lift
PM: 10 x 2min/1min jog/walk
Thursday:
AM: 60 minutes pool (3x10 + 5x1)
PM: 3 x 1min/1min + 3 x 2min/1min + 5 x 3min/1min jog/walk
Friday:
60 minutes pool (20 x 1min on/1min off tempo pace)
Saturday:
AM: 40 minutes bike easy + Lift
PM: 7 x 3min/1min jog/walk
Sunday:OFF
Commentary and Reflection of the Week: April 26-May 2
Tried a different approach to running this week, and it went way better than last week. I also started feeling like I wasn’t recovering, so I got an off day and some easy days on the schedule. In the beginning of this cross training stint I just wanted to go hard every day, and I did...and then it caught up to me haha. Mentally this week was a rough one...but by the end of it I started feeling better, and I think we have figured out a plan for my racing schedule and so forth moving forward. A game changer has also been going to the pool with Ricky - it helps so much just having someone to relate to and to workout with everyday. My mood seems to depend on how my achilles feels (sad but true LOL), but our morning workouts distract me from thinking about it too much and our post-workout Dunkin coffee is literally what I look forward to haha.
Commentary and Reflection From Coaches Amy and Andrew Begley of the Week: April 19-May 2
Yolanda is back to running! Her Achilles continues to improve, and she was able to get in some walk/jog sessions this week. The Achilles is tricky, so we have to be very conservative as we come back. We don’t have enough time for another flare-up, so we have to get it right.
Yolanda has been working so hard on cross training that her body doesn’t have a lot left to recover. As a result, we had to back off a little bit this week. The goal is to transition back to workouts in the next 8-10 days, so things are looking up!
