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.
Lasater reflects on his training period between February 8-21 in this post. To learn more about Lasater click here.
Workouts for the Week: February 8-14
Monday: 12 miles at ~7:06 pace. Ran at the clay road loop. Kept it pretty light and had an enjoyable run with Yolanda and Megan.
Tuesday: 7 miles at ~7:10 pace. Ran at the sandy park from last week but Wilkerson, Abe, and I stuck to the road because of our lower leg issues. Relatively hot day with the sun out.
Wednesday: Workout day at the turf field. Did 15x200 with a bit over a minute jog. Splits were 32, 32, 30, 30, 30, 28, 30, 29, 29, 29, 29, 29, 29, 29, 27. Changed directions about halfway through which was much better on my lower leg. I would say it began hurting at about number 6 but no sharp pain. Did a 50 minute bike in the evening on the trainer at the house.
Thursday: 7 miles at ~7:11 pace. Kept it very easy at the clay road loop. Had some sharp pain on the outside of my lower right leg at about 6.75 miles and didn’t think much of it because it was at the end.
Friday:Pre-time trial day. Plan was easy 5 with strides but I rolled my ankle at about a mile in. Didn’t hurt right away but by about 2.5 miles it hurt pretty bad.
Saturday: Drove to the track for the time trial/relay. Rained a ton so it ended up being cancelled. I had the day off due to my injury.
Sunday: 50 minute bike ride really easy.
Commentary and Reflection on the Week: February 8-14
I won’t lie, I had a pretty bad weak mentally. After I walked it in Friday from the pre-race easy day I was pretty emotional and literally had to walk around to calm down. Saturday I didn’t think much of it because everyone had to get ready for their time trial and those seemed to go pretty well. Had a talk with Amy and Andrew on the drive back Saturday which steadied the ship. They said they’ll let me know if I’m behind schedule but they’re not worried about it now.
I think my biggest weakness at the moment is mental because I’m having to draw all my confidence from workouts since I have no performances in the past year. So a bad week seems so much worse whereas in the past I’ve been on a bike for 3 weeks and run 1:46 so I shouldn’t need to worry too much this early in the year. Just need to take a day or two off when these types of things pop up and get back to training as soon as things feel right again.
Commentary and Reflection From Coaches Amy and Andrew Begley on the Week: February 8-14
Brandon’s achilles was still a little angry this week. He held back and ran with the women on his long run, and that helped. He felt better on Tuesday, but the achilles flared up after his massage on Tuesday. He was able to do the workout on Wednesday, but couldn’t really open up with the achilles. He looked stronger than he has in a long time.
His achilles did not cooperate on Friday. It flared up on the easy run, and we didn’t attempt strides. It is too early to take that risk. We decided to pull him from the time trial.
We ordered some superfeet, as that really helped Eden’s achilles. He said his achilles isn’t terrible, but he is frustrated that his lower legs are holding him back yet again. He is making great progress, but it’s tough to see when you’ve had a rough year. He is a huge talent, so we just have to get him back in the groove, and his talent will kick in.
We feel good about Brandon's progress. The biggest challenge is keeping his spirits and confidence up as we continue the comeback.
To learn more about the coaches click here.
Workouts for the Week: February 15-21
7 miles at ~7:03 pace. Ran pretty easy out and back on the 10 mile clay loop. Babying my lower leg a good bit trying to make it through the workouts this week.
Tuesday: Almost 8 miles for the workout at the turf field. Was meant to do 1200 down with Dylan but Dylan took the day off and we had some measuring mishaps (the wheel broke) so I did 12x400 with 90 seconds rest. Every third rep was “hot”. As the wheel was broken each rep was a bit shy of 400, I think the conversion ended up around needing to add 2 seconds per. The splits were 66, 65, 59, 66, 65, 57, 65, 63, 58, 66, 66, 59. Lower leg got a bit rough about halfway through so I had to settle in a bit. Didn’t have any sharp pains so that was a positive on the day. Felt pretty good overall fitness wise. 50 minute bike later in the day.
Wednesday: 7 miles at about 7:08 pace. Ran at a new dirt road in Green Swamp by myself. It rained for most of the run. Lower leg was decently sore but kept it pretty relaxed today.
Thursday: Just under 8 miles for the workout again. Went to a new trail recommended by Hanson’s group. Today was a “recovery” workout as we had a three mile tempo and 5x100. The middle workout of 3 workout weeks is usually to get work on tired legs but nothing killer. Three mile was a bit under goal pace at 15:33. It was a bit hotter today than it has been so far and I was very grateful I didn’t have Wilkerson’s workout of two by three mile. Strides felt pretty good afterwards until the 5th one at which point my hamstring grabbed a bit. Hopefully it doesn’t become anything major but another thing to be babied. 50 minute bike later in the day.
Friday: 7.6 miles at about 7:10 pace. Another hotter day today. We ran at the Green Swamp road again. Went a bit over getting distracted talking to Wilkerson and Avery. Had a strange encounter with an older gentleman in a truck who warned us of dangerous activity in the swamp. Only news I could find was a murder in 1988 but he did say “just the other day”. Hamstring and lower leg are a bit sore, I’ll need to find a replacement soon.
Saturday: Just over 8 miles of running on the day. Did a mile shakeout in the morning as the workout was in the afternoon. Workout was meant to be an all out 400 with 800s after then 4x200 to close it out. Scrapped that workout due to my nagging injuries and did part of Wilkerson’s workout which was a mile, two minutes rest, and then the 800s with 2 minutes rest. The mile was 4:21 then the 800s were 2:224, 2:24, and then about 600 into the next one Amy pulled me because I was running tight. Felt good to do a solid mile rep but had forgotten how bad it would feel after. Taking small steps in the right direction but still a bit frustrating not being able to work out at full capacity. Did a hot bath followed by ice on the hamstring in the evening.
Sunday: Today was an easier day. Just a 50 minute bike. Overall pretty sore today but hamstring doesn’t seem worse. Lower leg feels a good bit better today.
Commentary and Reflection on the Week: February 15-21
Overall a much better week than the last two. I’m still looking forward to a week where I can complete all the workouts without modifications but we have a lot of time until serious racing so I’m doing my best to stay patient and just count on the fitness falling into place. It’s been good to have the coaches with us every day as I will admit to falling into a funk during COVID time when things aren’t going well. I’m pretty sure my mind is my greatest enemy when it comes to running.
Commentary and Reflection From Coaches Amy and Andrew Begley on the Week: February 15-21
Brandon made some progress since Saturday. He missed that workout with an Achilles flare-up. He put in a ton of work on recovery. He cross trained, used the Firefly recover, hyperfolt, normatec, hot tub and pool. A lot of people don’t realize how hard top athletes work on recovery. In a lot of cases, this aspect of training is harder than the workouts. Workouts typically last 2 hours. Recovery is a day-long process. Brandon hit it hard this week.
He was scheduled to do a different workout on Tuesday, but his training partner had to skip the workout, so we put him in the 400 workout with Abe and Avery. He had a great workout! He nailed all of the tempo intervals, and hung close on the fast intervals. His strength is really coming along! We didn’t have him do the last 200, as we want to make sure to give the Achilles more time to heal.
On Thursday, Brandon had a great tempo! Abe, Brandon, Wilkerson and Avery worked together as one unit. They made it look easy. Brandon is starting to look like his old self, so that is really exciting to see! He isn’t the fastest 800 meter runner in the US, but he is one of the strongest, so having a good aerobic base is a key to his success. Brandon ran with Abe on the sprints. I jinxed him by telling him that he looked like he was getting back to top form. On the last one, his hamstring tightened up on him. It wasn’t a strain or a pull, so we were lucky. We have to strike a very delicate balance on how far to push the athletes. We have to push to the edge to be competitive, but we have to know when to stop, to avoid going over the edge (and into injury).
On Saturday, we decided to have Brandon stick to aerobic work, so we give his body time to catch up. He ran a strong mile with Wilkerson. He hung on strong in the 800’s, but his form started to break down toward the end, so we pulled the plug. We don’t want to risk a hamstring pull when his training is starting to come along again. We still have some bumps in the road, but we have more progress than we’ve had in about a year and a half, so we'll take it!
To learn more about the coaches click here.
