Ethan Cannon

Found yet another reason to run this afternoon, which meant I could run outside. And with it being wednesday, I realized I should do a workout.

Did 6 by 3 min on, one minute off on west river. I've done that workout before. I read recently an article that changed my view a bit about training. I think the idea is to just do as much work as possible at your lactate thresshold or otherwise to stress your body, even if it's not at a specific pace or whatever. It looks like today I was hovering around 5 minute pace (very rough estimation) for the hard running. Given the major patches of ice/snow, that is not a problem.

Really nice to have my feet get less wet today and have less ice to slip on. Maybe the mostly dry road combined with the fast shoes and the afternoon time to mean I ran 6:36 pace. 

I ran further than intended, and since I saw some old teammates doing a hills workout, I joined them for the last 5 reps of 40 second hill repeats. Now my achilles tendon feels sore so I'm glad I saw them but shouldn't have probably run quite that hard on a whim. 

Very conscientously relaxed on the run today to accomodate my sore achilles tendon, which I felt at times but never turned me back. That ended up looking like 6:23 pace on west river road, including many minor patches of ice. 

I know its not a big deal, but I'm proud of this being my longest week in a while. 

Snowed again last night, so back to the treadmill for my morning run. 

6:45 pace. I went around the long way to get to east river, then switched over to west river on franklin ave. But there were probably more routes I could have taken. I'm surprised how quickly the snow dissapeared after the storm the other day. 

6:54 pace running on Boom island for the first time in quite a while, despite keeping my watch running for all of the soft surface which was icy. 

6:46 pace. Snow started coming down pretty hard, so I'm glad I decided to take some respite by running an extra loop around the stadium going each direction. 

9 treadmill miles in the morning after the snow. 

Well that was that. I went out on east river road and did the first half of my run without any particular goal, but at 6 flat pace. At almost the halfway point, it started to lightly snow. The snow picked up a bit on the way back. At the St Thomas jut, I had a huge slip and landed on my back. My elbows were a little scraped but most of the issue was my right glute. Thankfully nothing worse happened. I lay there for like a minute or so before slowly getting up. As I started running, I felt kind of traumatized each time I would slip on ice, which would happen frequently since it was invisible under the snow. Eventually I got off and ran on the road. "Ran" is a strong term to describe what I was doing. The whole way back before the fall I averaged 7:24 pace, including the sub 6s I was probably doing the first third or so. I was surprised it contiued to bother me and keep me going so slow. Honestly I wonder if it even helped my cardiovascular fitness, I felt like aerobically I might as well have been walking! haha. Oh well. Be warned- don't move to MN if you have osteoporosis but like to go for walks in the winter. You're going to have a hard time. 

6:48 pace this afternoon around campus and across Franklin ave bridge.

6:53 pace transitway. Was cold outside but I bundles up and was not chilly at all. 

4 mile tempo on east river road starting at Franklin ave bridge. 5:06 pace. Good to be huffing and puffing like that. You can't get fit without working out. 

6:53 pace on an rainy morning around como lake. Felt tired from yesterday.

I think this was a treadmill day

Woke up to a new dusting of snow on the ground and wasn't interested in falling down again, so I went to the treadmill. Ran for about 100 minutes with no breaks. I ran 16 miles according to the treadmill plus getting there and back, but I've long suspected that it overstimates how fast you are going at higher speeds, so I am rounding down to 15.75. 

Hard to say exact mileage. I lucked out and saw some old teammates and was able to do a workout with them. Just a little thing, a fartlek with equal recovery and 3, 2x2, 3x1:30, and 4x1 minute hard, but the faster pace was good for me, and so much easier to workout with teammates. We went on transit. 

6:48 pace on west river road. 

Yes, you are reading this right- I just did my second workout in one week! It's like I'm a college runner again. The thing is, the summer racing season is coming up and I'd like to actually be in shape for it. I have a 10K in Minneapolis planned as well as a half marathon in Duluth. I'd like to add in some other events as well. In order to do well at those, I need to get some legit training in. I used to consider my hard long runs sufficient, but especially during the winter they often ended up at 6 flat pace, or even slower. That does not cut it for training for a 10K. So today I did 4 by mile with 4 min rest on a windy day on Como ave (from Raymond ave to almost Snelling). 4:53, 4:53, 4:51, 4:52. It's a start. 

7 flat pace. I was ready to do east river flats, but it wasn't ready for me. I fell down on the ice for my third fall of the year. Wasn't too bad. 

About 6:48 pace on west river road. 

I tried a new route today. I continued past Reservoir Woods and onto the Roseville "chain of parks". It was not a bad run. I felt still depleted, presumably because of the workouts this week but I'm not sure. 6:05 pace, including 5:55s on the way back. I was pushing it harder that direction. There is still a lot of snow on the ground, and when it melt onto a path and then freezes, it means there was more ice than I expected. I'm not sure if the ice will end because the snow will melt, or because it gets consistently above a point where it ever freezes and just remains as puddles. It might be the latter. This route, particularly the way I did it going via Hoyt avenue, is one of the hilliest routes I can think of to do. 

My left hip felt a little aggravated today. That was a bit concerning. Time to get new shoes fast or at least alternate with a newer pair I guess. Amazingly, the track is like 95% melted! I'm stoked to be able to work out on it, provided I feel ok. Didn't get pace because I saw some teammates and forgot to re start my watch. 

On a cold morning, somhow I ran 6:42 pace in a pair of very old Peg 38s around Como lake despite having hip issues. Hope that feels better but for now I am not planning on doing my workout tomorrow. 

If my recording is correct, these are the first non-Hoka shoes I have run more than 700 miles in in a long time. I didn't intend to wear those shoes and will wear newer ones tomorrow. 

Cold day to run around the bridges. Thankfully, my hip felt ok. But I wasn't able to do a workout on the track because there is actually still ice on it. For about 300 meters it was pretty clean but the other 100 it wasn't. 

Did a workout in the cold this morning. I went to Como avenue again, and this time ran half miles from transitway to the fair entrance. I intended to make it a relatively easy workout, aiming for 2:30 800s. Running east was definitely not that. You had a headwind but mostly my legs just felt sapped so much because of the hill. And I'm embaressed to say that because it is not that steep. But the way back felt good. I had considered just doing 6 but did 8. 90 seconds rest. These were half miles, so you can take a second off for the 800. 2:31, 2:26, 2:29, 2:23, 2:27, 2:23, 2:28, 2:22. 

6:51 pace, I tried to go chill. It was a nice rainy morning. I wore shorts to celebrate the nice weather on west river. Hip was a little sore but not bad.