Ethan Cannon

Felt better today but still apparently only 7:02 pace coming back from east river flats

East river road. 6:45 pace coming home. Humid. My extensor tendons had gradually calmed down since my race. I think a turning point was when I did my hard LR two weeks after the race and got through it fine. But I still noticed it occasionally when I put my foot in weird positions. Unfortunately it felt a tiny bit painful today, a little higher on the foot. Hope it goes away. 

6:56 pace coming back from boom island. I think the humidity made me feel very tired. Foot didn't feel terrible nor was it all the way better. 

6:42 pace on west river road north? Seems hard to believe but oh well. 

Congrats to me for running Luce Line for the first time finally. It was really cool! The crushed limestone was really good for lessening impact (and sure enough, at the end of my run I added on a couple miles, a lot of it being on paved trail, and it felt very firm). The downside of this is that I felt like we were going really slow. Just going sub 6:30 felt like an effort. This is particularly relevant as my marathon includes a few miles on this type of surface, and I'm worried it will slow me down a low. It was a great day for this though, cloudy outside and we got a little rain. Ran with my old teammate Aaron. 

SIDE NOTE: sometimes I feel that I overuse river road for long runs. But the facts actually don't line up with that. Interestingly, the last time I ran a long run on either river road was friday, May 19!! I've done a lot of racing, pre-race long runs on resevoir woods, and Gateway running since then. 

6:54 pace coming home from a park a bit past the church, after I pushd the stroller for a few miles at the park. Not worth explaining why. Heading to Maryland tmrw and hoping they have good running. 

57 minutes in deep creek maryland, distance approximated. Probably less than that but equivalent effort. This is a very hilly but beautiful place. It's just like a quiet, thick forest and there were some nice evening clouds.

Yikes, I guess I was going slower than I thought. Today I actually mapped it out and it looks like I was only running about 7:43 pace. I mean, there was over 400 feet of elevation gain in the 4.2 miles so I feel like that is for a reason. But I was trying to keep it calm as well because of my foot. Super pretty though. Another quiet cloudy morning running through beautiful woods with only occasional cars. 

7:36 mile pace in the rain, similar route to last time. Felt ok, though these hills clearly put strain on my hips, feet, and knees, etc. 

Once again I'm not sure how far I went. Ran nice and slow, but my hip started hurting. I'm grateful that my achilles tendon and feet have been fine, but I'm definitely ready to get back on the flat. 

Looks like I ran even slower today, so I only got aprroximately a  measly 9.5 miles out of my 74 minute run. Thankfully my hip didn't feel terrible. The plan is to do a long run on monday.

LR today since I didn't do one last week. A couple of good news': a) my body felt pretty ok, it will really be a great blessing if I am able to ride the wave of the hills I have run this past week. B) maybe due to long and hard LRs in prior weeks, 16.86 decently chill miles on the W&OD seems extremely manageable.

Less good news: A) This run felt much more difficult than 6:16 pace. I would have pinned it as sub-6. B) I used some gel my father in law gave me. The copyright date was 2015, meaning it likely expired in 2016. I specifically took the one with caffeine in it. It tasted fine, but during the end of the run and afterwards I felt some cramping and a little other abnormal discomfort. I hadn't considered the fact that after taking a caffeineited gel, it wouldn't be easy to discern between discomfort that is simply a normal part of the back end of a long run on a humid day on the W&OD vs. something due to caffeine that will impair my race performance. Before the memory gets hazy, I'll say right here that I really don't think I normally get those type of cramps. Who knows what would happen when taking 2-3 gels over the course of an hour or two. C) Less importantly, it's funny how the W&OD has lost a good amount of its luster after I've become accustomed to the gateway trail, which overall I prefer to this. It's still nice to come to, but it's not the experience it once was. 

So now I have an important decision to make about what to do on race day. One option would be to wear my grey shorts and pack two of my gels with me, then maybe to take a caffeineted one near the end. Its kind of frustrating prepping for the marathon beacause unfortunately it's no longer as simple as "who's the fastest, toughest runner" and instead involves who has the time, money, and stomach to perfect the ideal nutritional concotion to keep glucose going without upsetting their stomach. 

6:58 pace, east river flats. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but wasn't bad either. I'll give myself credit for having done an LR yesterday, traveling all of today, and running in 80 degrees (not much I know but I'm not used to it). 

6:55 pace coming back from west river but almost certainly slower than 7 flat pace overall. 

Wow, 6:58 pace on east river road means I must have been running backwards. Seriously though, I'm a little concerned that my pace has continued to stay slow. Then ran an extra bit around Como, not on purpose. 

6:46 pace coming back from farmers fields. They are *still* working on the road, so I got my feet pretty wet from the dew. I was grateful, it was kind of smoky air but more so in downtown than it was to the east, so I definitely felt good about running that direction. 

Once again, I didn't quite go 17 miles, this time hitting 16.78. There was a heat warning today but my run, which started late at 8:00, was honestly not that bad (the worst part was when I was in the porta potty, those are so hot). I enjoyed running east river road (which it has been quite a while since I did an LR on), although it drew quite the crowd today. 6:12 pace going out, 5:51s coming back. 6:01 overall. Yet again I wish that was faster given the effort. I stopped for a drink once near the start of river road. My marathon training aspect today was to take 2 GUs in my grey shorts (I only consumed one of them though). It wasn't ideal but was maneageable. I had one of them, and definitely felt less in the way of cramps today as suspected. But I still don't know if the GU caused how I felt last time; these shorts also start feeling uncomfortable when I get sweaty, and I'd rather wear my black ones if it wasn't for my concern about the caffeine GU. Hopefully I make a good decision.

Note that this is my highest mileage week since probably April of 2022 which is interesting. But I'm not really counting it as anything special since it only happened because I switched last week's LR with this monday. 

Other note: I am not at 2007 miles this year and have crossed the 2K thresshold! I'm grateful to be able to run. 

Nice cloudy and cool morning. I ran Boom island to save some shadier routes for the hot days coming up. Only 7 flat pace. 

Very surprising, and again a little concerning. 7 flat pace today- coming back from east river flats. It was a one of those really hot and humid days, but normally under those conditions I run faster, not slower. Not sure what's up. 

Gross. When I came home it was 84 degrees with a dew point of 74. I got water twice on the east river flats run. 6:34 pace coming home and it felt so hard. My shoes started squishing with the sweat. The past couple days have been quite the adventure lol. 

About 6:52 paec on west river. Very humid again and 70 degrees but overcast and felt much better. 

6:48 pace. I went longer because I met my family on a walk and walked away from the house for a while. 

This one was pretty hard to believe but I double checked it on map my run. Apparently I was hitting 5:54 pace down to SF canal trail and back, and hit 16 miles on the dot. It just seems a little funky because I only ran one mile split faster than that (mostly stayed near 6 flat) according to the trail markers themselves, which should have been some of my fastest miles, as I was well warmed up but not dealing with hills or the amount of too much wind. Oh well.

I know it wasn't very far, but I was pretty thrilled to take what I could get- I got a solid night of sleep, got to go for a run, and got out the door by 8:15 for the airport. I didn't think I would be able to run in the morning. 6:39 pace to the end of the lateral and back to the pond. Tbh I was in a bit of a hurry with us getting out on time and all, so the fast pace isn't surprising. 

6:51 pace on farmers fields. I was going to do Como classic before I remembered its fair time. Felt a little harder today, I woner if the humidity really does make a difference. I legit saw a lean fox on the soft surface. We stared each other down before it left the path. 

6:42 pace coming back from boom island 

6:52 pace coming back from east river flats