Ethan Cannon

Today I did something I've always wanted to do which is run point to point home from Oakdale on the gateway trail. It worked because Sarah had gone to the temple while I was with the girls. Thus, it was my second time every on certain portions of the trail. It was nicer than I remembered it. I love the sights and smells of it. I didn't get going till 10 and it was very hot and tiring. I hope I will be ok to race next week. 6:15 pace. 

6:54 pace, east river flats. Another toasty day for a run. Still, I have never had a day that felt quite like a couple days last year. 

Ran an actually hilly run at hyland hills and park with Aaron L, who just moved in. It was really nice out. For the second straight July 4th, it dumped rain, but this time it was after my run rather than during it. 

6:47 pace on the way back from east river road. 

8 miles and strides. Had a horrible sleep and did not feel good today. I just couldn't fall asleep last night. 

Pre meet. Tired. 

I'm grateful to have run that race. It's been a bad week in terms of getting rest. I can't tell if I was fatigued from that or just the altitude, but in my first day at altitude since 2021, I definitely felt it. I was warming up and did a hard minute like always, and when I did an uphill part, I was immediately drained. Only got like 1.5 miles warm up and was waiting for the bathroom at 5 minutes till race time- yikes! I got to run  with a few people I knew from my BYU days which was fun, although one of them had an issue and had to drop out early on unfortunately. I don't have mile splits because they didn't have them. I was going to take a gel to practice doing it in a race setting, but my stomach and the rest of me hurt so bad that I didn't. The uphills didn't feel so bad, it was just the last few miles running through Mapleton on flat that hurt a lot. I'm glad to have won the race and some prize money, as well as to have run faster than my PR, even though I don't consider this a legit half PR with the ~1100 feet elevation drop. Course was well marked and I had two lead bikes though which was awesome. 

Thankfully there was a gym and a treadmill for me here. I hurt my foot (tendons I think) pretty bad during the race. That plus the soreness made me not interested in a hilly run. The treadmill said I ran over 8 minute pace, and I believe it. I gradually sped up as I went though. 

Treadmill run

More treadmill. According to it, Mile 1 was 9:16 and I averaged close to 8:10 by the end by cranking it down to a scorching 7:35 pace. Just trying to take care of my foot. 

Ran in the late morning so I went a little faster as my foot was warmed up

Ran a little further today.

6:55 pace on west river road via franklin ave bridge to avoid running on hills for my foot. Overall it was a good day for my foot, but I coul tell that my achilles was bearing more weight as a compensator which isn't good. Training-wise, it's good to be home, although I can tell how effective altitude training is. Wore a mask because of smoke.

6:55 pace on boom island. My foot felt the best it has since the race, but is a long way from 100%. 

6:51 pace on east river flats. My foot felt better still today, not really bothering me at all till towards the end of the run, but still a long ways to go. 

Wow, 6:34 pace back from east river road. That's the fastest I've gone (completely unintentionally) on that course since I can remember, and I took all of the offchutes. It was a beautiful morning, having rained last night and was overcast by the time I got back. I think east river has taken over this year as a favorite run after west river held the title last year. Foot pain still not resolved all the way. 

Felt a little tired today. Another nice day for a run on west river road (roundabout route). 6:51 pace. Can still feel the foot. 

6:35 pace back from west river north. Foot still hurting unfortunately, so will have to go easier on long run tomorrow. 

For a second there I almost checked the "race report" box. Today was a hard run. Rather than go super long, I planned to do 16-17 miles, and race pace on the way back if I felt good. You see, I signed up for the marathon yesterday and need to start getting ready for it. But I was worried about my foot as well. 

I went out on Como ave, and at the bottom of the windy hill I turned left and ran past McCarrons lake area. 6:02 pace on the way out. I wasn't running easy, but did feel pretty comfortable. I was also very sweaty by then- it was 65 degrees or so when I left, but somehow 77 degrees when I got back, and very humid. I turned around and started pushing it pretty hard, hoping I was going very fast, because the idea of holding the pace I was going at for 26 miles seemed impossible. As I got closer to home, I realized it was going to be "close" (in terms of meeting my goal or not) so I kept running hard even though I was very tired and finished just under 5:30 pace for the way back. I took a couple of stops at lights and stuff but overall they weren't long enough I think to be a help. The course isn't easy, but I don't imagine it is too much harder than the race will be either, other than the sharp turns I was doing maybe. I'm grateful my foot didn't hurt. At the end I felt super overheated and my stomach was churning. I'm hoping in the race that cooler weather will be a huge help, and that other factors will make me capable of holding that pace for much longer. 5:47 pace overall.

Smoky outside, that was frustrating. So I ran on the treadmill for the first time in Minneapolis since the snows. Thankfully there was an AC unit but I still got really hot.  

6:48 pace coming back from east river flat. Very humid run today but it was nice to be outside again, the air was ok this morning.

It was a beautiful overcast morning and had just finished raining when I went out. It was great timing to not have the sun because the heat and humidity were for real. The past few days I've had to wash my shorts out in the shower cuz they are soaked through anyway and they might as well not smell like sweat. 6:46 pace. 

6:44 pace approximating Como classic. I ran onto the dock there. It was about 76 degrees when I left and 80 when I returned. The humidity was by far the worst of it. Despite it being an easy run, I started feeling blisters coming on near the end from the sweat. Still, the run wasn't the same level of suffering as the memorable one from last year. Sadly, yesterday on my run was the first time I remember seeing an animal (squirrel) get run over by a car. Today was the first time I remember seeing an arrest. There were two guys who had their hands behind their head at the fairgrounds. Other trucks seemed to be just going about their day which made me almost think it was a practice. One of the guys starting running away in my general direction but seemed to give up kind of easily. Weird, and scary. 

Boom island. It was still >70 degrees and very humid when I woke up today, but not as bad as yesterday. I felt tired on my run (which was maybe a bit under 7 minute pace going on; I forgot to stop my watch at the end). I can't think of any reason why that would be other than the heat. Hopefully I'll feel better when it cools down a bit. 

Yep, you read that right. This was my longest run of all time, breaking the record by about 1.75 miles. I tried to think of it as merely a little extra running around at the end of the gateway trail, and as I ran back, not to think about how far I had come. at 2 hours, 5 minutes, this was not the longest run I've ever done in terms of time, I believe that honor goes to a 2:10 run I did in the snow in Leesburg. After doing a workout last week, the goal today was to try out going far, and to remain in control / to actually enjoy the run the whole time. As I went out, my splits looked pretty fast, but I can honestly say I was doing fine. I realized though that the same pace that feels fine on the front half of a LR may not feel fine on the back half (that being said- when does the back half of a LR ever feel good?). It was a pretty run, mostly sunny. 68-73 degrees, so a lot better than last week, but still, a race should be much cooler than that, and you would consider a marathon in that weather to be very poor conditions. I knew I would need water, and looked desparately for it. They had some at pine point which was nice to learn- I had some on the way out and then a few miles later coming back. Taking my GU went fine. I got more fatigued but still felt really ok coming back. I decided to run hard on my last full mile. That was very painful; I ran 5:30 (although that mile I think is long). It was clear I had not much glycogen left to do something with. Still, I'm proud that I felt good enough to do something like that- I wasn't just slogging back at the pace I had been going. 5:46 pace overall is really exciting. Had I not run that last mile hard that would have felt not bad at all. Including untimed sections total distance was about 21.80 miles. "Mile" splits: 6:20, 5:44, 5:53, 5:45, 5:46, 5:58, 5:11, 6:21, 5:20, 15:56 past the end, 5:19, 6:03, 5:05, 5:54, 5:46, 5:41, 5:58, 5:28, 5:30. 3:05 and 2:51 for the first and last little segment.  Only stopped briefly for water. 

7:06 pace on west river road. Obviously I was tired and not feeling the need to hurry at all.