Ethan Cannon

I don't plan to do that again. I wanted to go very light on my last effort before the race next week, so I decided to do 2x2 miles near race pace (5:35 pace, a little fast to account for the lack of hills). I should have know when I calculated that meant I needed to be hitting 84s that that is just too slow to run on the track. It just became kind of monotonous and makes you wonder if you can really hit that pace for ~105 laps. I did do a really crude job taking my heart rate, and was surprised it was as high as it was tbh, maybe 140 right after my first rep and 150+ after my second. I took a 90 second break in between them to switch directions and very quickly my pulse dropped down to 100. Anyway, I ran 11:03 and then 10:49 (very similar splits of just a bit fast until I ran a 68 last lap and really felt how slippery the rain made things). Still, it's always nice to go the track on a wet day and go for it.  

6:40 pace, west river road. Felt tired though. The heat wave is almost over. 

I had been looking forward to an MLR at Resevoir Woods (because it's that time of year in Minnesota when you can look forward to your daily run) but the kids were grumpy this morning so somehow we decided to do a bike/run together, which seemed like a bit of a sacrifice at first. It turned out to be great. I think I am getting better at pushing the stroller. The girls did great. It wasn't as hot as it had been previous days so it felt great outside, and we had a really nice time running to Como park, all the way around the lake, and then I dropped them off at the playground and ran 3 miles all around the trails. Then we went home. It was just a really nice day and fun to do something like that as a family. It was also our first saturday doing something like this so the family got to enjoy the quiet streets. Amazingly enough, according to mapmyrun I hit exactly 14 miles. That's impressive. 6:39 pace for the overall run. 

6:55 pace on a rain-soaked morning on east river flats. Felt a tad bit flat but mostly just wet! 

6:36 pace coming back from boom island. It was a great morning out for a run! Nice and sunny and cool today. 

6:48 pace on a route I haven't done in a long time- Minneapolis diagonal. I was trying to do something new with the fam for a bike / run and plus there is so much construction right now that not all routes are easily accessible with a stroller/bike. 

West river road, 3 strides at the end. 

Pre race

I could write an essay about this race- it was a marathon after all. I’ll try to keep it concise. I signed up for this race relatively last minute. It’s a really small but historic race in the north woods of Wisconsin near the Michigan border. The drive both directions was pretty breathtaking and a highlight of the trip. I was tempted on the way home to stop and go for a hike! The people were very nice (what would you expect) and it’ll be a good memory. 

I wasn’t expecting competition for the win, but I wanted to run sub-2:30 to maximize my prize money, and also get another marathon to build confidence for my next one after Akron, which was in some ways a disaster. This one didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Miles 1-10 mostly consisted of sight seeing and feeling overconfident in myself because the pace I wanted to keep (5:40s) felt easy. Miles 13-14 were a scare because I rapidly felt a decline in strength and worried I was headed overboard. That’s the thing about a marathon- it’s hard (at least on your second attempt) to know your limits.  I got into a rhythm again through mile 20. At that point, we turned around into the wind and on a hilly section and it started to feel bad. Based on how those last miles went, I can’t honestly say I left a whole lot in the tank. My calves were fine this time and I didn’t bonk the way I did last time, but my inner thighs started involuntarily seizing up and cramping. It got pretty painful by the end so I almost fell over after I stopped. 

Other notes: Weather was overcast, a cool ~52 degrees, and with a relatively large wind that was mostly at our back. Course was on the side of roads. 1100 feet elevation gain was not easy, but tbh I can run moderate hills at the beginning easily at sub-5:40. It’s the stuff at the end that kills. Took gels every 3 miles until mile 15, then took one more at 19. I developed a tummy ache and they started to taste gross but I think that had a much smaller effect on my pace than problems related to a lack of fuel, rather than too much. I was very fortunate to run the first 12 miles behind two relay teams where the guys did a surprisingly good job running the pace that I wanted and  doing so very consistently even across

multiple runners, rather than a hard first mile followed by a significant slowing. I felt super cold right after the race and I was shaking pretty bad all the way till I got in the shower and my body finally relaxed. I think there is a physiologic reason why your body struggles to stay warm after exerting itself like that. Somehow I lost my bib within 5 minutes of getting it, thankfully they took care of me. I think the marathon is too far a distance for me. I just feel like it’s a different sport from pure running (half marathon or shorter) where you don’t have to deal with this fueling issue. 

Splits- I didn’t get some of them because the aid station was right there so I had to focus on that. What you’ll notice is I definitely have the “two mile curse” after this and Akron: if I get a split at a mile, it’ll be fast, but if I take it at two miles, it will be surprisingly slow! 5:23, 5:40, 5:42, 5:29, 5:27, 11:29, 5:26, 11:34, 5:29, 11:59 (to 13.1 in 73:42), 5:02 (to 14), 5:21, 5:28, 5:27, 5:32, 11:17, 5:42, 5:35, 5:27, 5:44, 5:45, 5:57, 1:15. 

I supposedly ran 6:30 pace coming back from boom island? Seems hard to believe. There's no doubt that I felt better than I should have compared to last year, but my pessimistic prediction is that things will actually get worse over the next few days. 

7:03 pace, farmers fields. As predicted, I felt a little worse today. 

6:56 pace with the fam. Felt less fatigued, especially for having the stroller, but being with my family often distracts me from how I feel while running. We ran around Falcon Heights, the hard-surface version of farmers fields I would say. Between the fairgrounds being closed and all the construction, a lot of our potential routes are closed off. Hey, at least Cleveland ave is done, that took forever. 

6:56 pace coming back from east river flats on an overcast morning that never started raining. The pace was apparently slow (probably 7 minute pace overall) but I'm very pleased with how I felt in terms of recovering from my race. 

Tired legs today. You would think you'd feel a little better each day after a marathon, not a little worse! Oh well. 6:54 pace on a drizzly morning on east river flats.

Amazing overcast and a little rainy day to run to Reservoir Woods. I tried to explore it a bit but the trail supposedly on the north end was really overgrown. It's still one of my favorite spots I can run to though. 6:30 pace. I felt fine. 

6:52 pace, boom island. Smoke was better than last night thankfully. 

6:50 pace. With the fairgrounds blocked off, the Como route is a lot less enjoyable. Felt tired. Yesterday I made a big decision about my fall racing plans. What it means is that I have some important training on hills and soft surfaces at high speeds and in flats that needs to happen in the next few weeks. So I'm hoping my body can feel ready for that ASAP. 

6:40 pace on east river road, just me and the girls in the stroller. Tiring for sure. 

6:46 pace, east river flats. Nice to have really clean air again. Tired still. 

It would have been a really nice cloudy run on west river road if it weren't for two things. The first is that I got a bee sting early on. When I came home I found out my wife was stung too, which is quite the coincidence given that I haven't been stung since...almost exactly three years ago. I figured it must be a time of year thing and turns out yes they are more feisty at the end of the summer. More importantly, I felt some bad patellofemoral pain today. I'm not sure where it came from, though it may have started on a day I was pushing the stroller, which does cause me to alter my form (though I don't see how it would make things worse on my knees). For now, I'll avoid squats and hope that it goes away on its own! 6:45 pace. At least I didn't feel tired. 

It was great to be back on the Gateway again! I figure this will be the only time I get to enjoy that this summer. The last time I was here in May I rolled a long run record 5:35 pace. This time I ran 5:55 pace and it felt really easy. The reason why is my wife came with me on the bike. It was lots of fun. It's kind of cool that I can hold a conversation with ease at 6 minute mile pace. Still, we were more impressed with the athletic abilities of a large number of older folks who were killing it out there. There was a lady who was not young by any means who started where we did at Demontreville park and was continuing to run at around the 6 mile mark. We also saw my PhD advisor lol. Pretty warm out but the shade is always a huge help. Really glad we got to have that experience for the first time as I really love the gateway. My knee definitely felt better than it could have. I wonder if wearing my Sauconys more would help. 

6:52 pace on St. A parkway (surprised myself by doing that route). Very dissapointed to report that my knee pain was back today and bad as ever. It was a doozy of a day with a low of 75 degrees and exceptional humidity.

6:49 pace on my "hard surface" Farmers fields route. Last night was a major storm and it was still raining early this morning. Nice day for a run. My knee didn't hurt as early in the run or as much. Also, I did some exercises which may or may not help. Bummed that a workout is out of the question for tomorrow but grateful to be able to run at all. 

6:32 pace on the way back from east river flats on a misting morning that was in the low/mid 60s but felt super nice compared to previous days. The fast pace is due to my decision to run hard up the main hill on the way home, about 3 minutes. My knee felt better during that than it had before, so I decided to run another hard minute up onto the bridge. I wonder if this is one of this exceptionally rare injuries that do better (or at least no worse) by running hard on them. I rememeber one previous situation like that. We'll see. Time is of the essense if I want to train for Griak. I'm tired of my knee feeling like this. More exercises. 

6:37 pace, east river road. Ran past the stadium on the first day of football/fall sports season. Knee didn't feel amazing or terrible. 

Still knee pain. Bummer. We'll see if I end up doing a workout tomorrow. West river north. 

Morning run on west river road. The mileage is down in part because I don't need it- I've shifted my focus from a marathon to two races no longer than a 10K. Time to work on speed. Partway through, I ran 3x(3,2,1) with recovery equal to the length of the next rep. Including the final three minute jog, that made for a 36 minute workout that covered 6.25 miles, which is 5:45 pace. That's pretty good in my mind, it means if the hard stuff was 5 minute pace the easy would have had to been approximately 6:30. I think that the hard was faster than that because the easy had to have been slower. Overall the run was pretty chill but at the end once I started going slow my knees started aching again which created its own sort of fatigue. It weirds me out that running hard seems to be doable with this injury, but I'll take it. I need to start putting in some work to get in shape. 6:04 pace overall. 9 mile bike ride later in the morning (pulling a trailer).