Tyler Andrews ready to take on a record in 50K

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Tyler Andrews has his sights set on running a world record next week, and yet it’s the distance overcome from where he started that might be his greatest achievement.

Andrews, 27, has turned himself into a world-class endurance athlete through years of grinding hard work since his modest beginnings at Concord Academy, a Boston area high school.

(Photos above by Melanie Ng)

He is aiming to break the 50-kilometer world record April 13 in the HOKA ONE ONE Santa Barbara Easter Relays. The race is five miles longer than a marathon, and the record, which has been on the books since 1988, is 2 hours, 43 minutes, 38 seconds by Thompson Magawana of South Africa.

“We started talking about it with HOKA a year ago,” said Andrews, who spends much of his time living and training above 9,000 feet in Quito, Ecuador.

“Last spring was busy. I wanted to do the U.S. Marathon Championships. So this spring worked out. I was fit last fall … based on that fitness I know I can get to that point where the record is a reasonable goal.”

Andrews admits he took up running at Concord Academy for class credit with no real ambition that it would become part of his future.

His senior year, a new coach came on board. Jon Waldron planted the idea that running was a vehicle for measuring improvement.

“He instilled in me this love of self-improvement,” Andrews said. “It’s still the driving force why I’m in the sport today.”

Andrews left high school with a 5K best north of 18 minutes.

He took a year off from school and spent some time in Latin America. He came back to enroll at Skidmore College in Upstate New York, a school with no track team, and spent two and a half years training around his studies – with guidance from Waldron – and finding that he had ability. He continued to improve.

He transferred to Tufts University to pursue a mechanical engineering degree and joined the school’s NCAA Division 3 track team. He qualified for nationals in the 10,000 meters once and also made it in cross country.

“I wasn’t even the best runner on my team,” Andrews said.

His senior year at Tufts, three big things happened all at once. He poured his energy into a daunting engineering thesis. He and a couple of friends acquired a business called STRIVE, which organizes summer trips for high school runners to Kenya and Peru and combines training and education with service.

And lastly, he decided to explore his potential in running.

“That summer after I graduated I found a part-time job working in a hostel in Ecuador, makings beds and cleaning toilets,” Andrews said. “It gave me a place to stay and money for food. I used the rest of my time for training and that fall I improved a lot. I had a big PR in the half and a big PR in the 10K.”

He got invited to compete at the Boston Marathon in the spring of 2014. Running on hallowed ground not far from where he grew up, Andrews ran 2:21:33.

That result got the attention of HOKA, which started sending Andrews gear and then eventually signed him.

Today, Andrews has the life and platform that he wants. He can work on STRIVE throughout the year on his laptop and he organizes every detail of the summer trips to Peru.  

“A lot of kids are making a choice: Do I go to a running camp or go on this cool international trip?” Andrews said. “I believe running can enhance your understanding of a new place.”

And he also runs, with Waldron still serving as an adviser and coach.

Andrews was second at the 2016 50K World Championships (2:56:04) and has lowered his marathon best to 2:15:52.

Andrews’ improvement is self-driven but also directed in some ways by Waldron.

“What I think a coach can do to help an athlete who’s quite capable is to know when it’s too much, not enough, or offer perspective on when things don’t go perfectly, or do go perfectly,” Waldron said.

The 50K record attempt next week is a big task, but Andrews feels up to the challenge. He’ll circle a track more than 120 times and essentially be racing a clock.

“I think the hardest thing to do in racing is to run against the clock,” Waldron said. “The mental preparation to run a steady pace is harder than being in a competitive race. The biggest challenge is to reach certain stages of the race with the least amount of mental effort. It’s easy to expend a lot of mental effort early.”

Andrews will have pacers but also a few competitors.

Waldron suggested that he may approach the race with the idea of running the first 8K as a warmup and roll into the remaining distance – a marathon.

On March 10, Andrews used the Rock N Roll D.C. Marathon as a tune-up. He won it by five minutes, in 2:20:45.

“All systems go for the record,” Andrews said.