Ethan Cannon

Smoke day 2

Smoke day 3. I feel better about doing this short long run after having done a couple of longer ones that past couple weeks. I ran for a total of 99 minutes, probably averaging 6 minute pace according to the treadmill for ~90 minutes of that. But I just don't feel the same way I do after an LR or even an MLR, so I'm skeptical of assuming higher mileage. Looking forward to running outside again for a lot of reasons. 

Around Como classic. I forgot that the fairgrounds closed beginning today. 

I was very glad to see the air had gotten a little better so I could do my workout today. I did something today that I have enjoyed doing before, which is doing some sort of interval over a planned route, but not the exact same one. For example, you could do mile repeats on the track and each rep would be identical. This time, I did a 1K route north on Cleveland starting at Larpenteur, then came back, then ran 1K south, then came back. So it felt like there were 4 unique paths I took on each rep, which made it much easier to stomach doing 10 of them than if they were say, all on the track. Another example of a time I did this would be my Ks on Juanipero in Medford. 10xK w/ 60 seconds rest except due to necessity after rep 5 (<4 minutes). Distances were likely 1-3 seconds short. 3:07, 3:04, 3:05, 3:04, 3:05, 3:01, 3:02, 3:04, 3:03, 3:01. 

Shoe thoughts: I am developing a lot of brand loyalty towards Saucony. However, I have gotten a little banged up while wearing my Triumphs (not necessarily cause and effect) and was ready to try something new...or old, as the Ride 10s were all-time favorites. As billed, the Ride 17s are a less cushy ride than the Triumphs. We will see how that turns out for my feet/knees. As I read somewhere though, I definitely can feel myself letting my feet down more lightly than I would otherwise, in part because of the loud slapping noise they make when you don't. So, I'm not blown away by them yet but feel like Saucony is doing its good Saucony stuff. 

6:58 pace. Enjoyed a nice overcast morning on east river flats. Not sure I love the firmness of the Rides. 

6:47 pace, west river north via stone arch. I surprised myself by doing this again, I guess I am getting caught up after both bridges were closed for months. Felt some knee pain in the patellar area. Remains to be seen whether that happened to co-occur with using the Rides or was caused by them. 

6:40 pace, steamy morning on east river road. Body felt a little better. 

Well, either I'm out of shape, or the humidity just does me in. We had a big storm roll through this morning that woke me up. It was 74 w/ 71 dewpoint when I left for my run. Initially felt fine, nice and cloudy and quiet out. But when I started by 10 mile tempo, I felt the heat, and ended up with squishy shoes. I ran 5:24ish pace overall, including just a hair slower on the way back, despite ending on a downhill (I started and finished at east river flats, and turned around at Minnehaha park). This was a good workout to do, especially without having done a 1/2 this year. 

Como classic, modified route for fair season. Very happy to wake up to decent air. It was humid but actually really nice outside. 

I made a gamble and it worked. The AQI was in the 120s this morning but it was supposed to get better, so I biked to work at 7 am with my running clothes. By the afternoon, the air was clean and I went on a run on west river. Thankfully, it wasn't too hot or humid and so it wasn't bad in that way. I guess I would say the one thing was it felt like it took more energy than a morning run. I don't rememebr really feeling that way this past winter, so maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it. The other thing is I took literally every possible side path, but river road definitely gets a lot busier with traffic in the afternoon. It's amazing how much quieter it is around 7 in the morning compared with 4 pm. 

Nice and cool morning compared to previous weeks and little wind. These made for good conditions for a workout. I ran 3 loops around the "block" that surrounds Falcon Heights park, overlapping part of my workout from last week. MapmyRun has updated. I don't like all the updates but it does have some perks, including more accurate mapping by letting you go on some sidewalks, for example. I estimated the distance was around 1.95 miles per loop but it was actually 1.93. I did one of my "float" workouts: on lap 1, I alternated 3 minutes float with 3 minutes hard. Then I did 2:2 on lap 2 and 1:1 on lap 3. I ran 10:19, 10:21, 10:20. I didn't take a break so I always started with easy, and the way that worked out, my first two reps ended up being just 4:20 of "hard", while my third rep was 5:20 of hard. That ended up being 5:21 pace overall. I'm pretty content with that. Hard to know exactly how fast I was going on the hard and float, but my initial goal was 5:30 pace (5:00 and 6:00) so I feel good about this. 

Pretty slow I think. East river road. For the second time this week, I tried to explore an area I commonly pass by, but again it ended with nothing very helpful. Between my foot, hip, patella, and knee- I wonder if it is time to back off from workouts and run easy except for long runs. 

6:47 pace, Diagonal and St. A parkway. 

Wow, this summer has not been easy for Saturday long runs. Over the last five weeks I've dealt with torching heat and humidity, wildfire smoke, and now torrential thunderstorms. Apparently we got like an inch or two over a couple hours this morning. It just wasn't reasonable to go outside and do the LR I wanted. So ultimately I decided to pivot my LR to early next week (hopefully) and run normal today...ended up hitting 6:06 pace on a slow course, because it's the end of the week and also I was trying to get somewhere fast. I basically did my Lake Johanna long run route, then cut west to the church.

Rain appeared to be coming yet again. As I started my run northeast to Resevoir woods, I thought I was escaping it. Even on the way back, it was always light or nonexistant. Kind of dissapointed with 6:16 pace overall, 6:04s on the way back for the effort I put in. I got kind of tired of just "settling in", and ran a good solid tempo on Roselawn, with moderately hard effort in the parks and chill-ish on the way back. Oh well. Time to actually run easy.  

7:03 pace, west river road north. I was slow but wouldn't say I felt overly fatigued due to my run yesterday. 

7:02 pace, east river flats. 

6:57 pace if mapping is correct, but I definitely felt like my body and pace were recovering. 

6:38 pace, Washington DC. Washington monument, Lincoln monument, Kennedy Center, rock creek trail. 

LR in Washington DC, primarily on the Capital Crescent trail. I had debated going on a canal trail instead, but ended up really liking this route. A highlight was a cool tunnel. Also, I hadn't thought to look at elevation change when planning this out. You actually gain 300 feet on the way out, which is nice because I was frustrated about my pace when looking at mile markers but didn't feel like the slope was affecting me too much on the way out (kind of like W&OD), but it sure helped to coast downhill on the way back. Took one of my expired Maurtens, and it went fine. It was 61 degrees this morning which sure felt good. Also, most of the run was shaded by huge trees. I wonder if that helped me to not feel "roasted" by the end of the run. I had a terrible sleep last night and got out late, so it was really nice to get to the end and feel like I could still move to get myself to my class on time. 5:53 pace overall. 6:05 pace on the way out, 5:41s on the way back. Got just a tiny bit lost- turns out there multiple squares and statues of people on horses!

Didn't feel slow, although apparently I ran slow. 7:10 pace, further on Rock creek trail today and I think I crossed paths with a place I ran when I was here in 2018, which was fun. Rolled my ankle which was less fun but didn't seem to hurt too much.

Just about 7 minute pace on Mount Vernon trail. This took me to Virginia, which was the third state/district I have run in on this trip. This summer, my list of states/districts/provinces I have run in includes California, Oregon, British Columbia, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. You can add Lousiana if you expand to the calendar year. 

6:37 pace, farmer's fields. It was dark when I left before 6 and a bit cold. Felt really sluggish. I did a 5-4-3-2-1 workout, probably pretty slow, to get some faster pace going. 

6:50 pace, boom island. 

6:58 pace, WRR. 

5:51 pace, east river (shortcut route) to Hidden Falls and Crosby Farm. My two-year expired gel left a weird taste in my mouth so I'm glad I have a plan to not use those. Much less sweaty (or at least better wicked) this time compared to the last time I ran this route. It was like foggy outside. Bummer, by the end I was slowing down more due to feeling banged up on my knee and plantar fasciaa than because I was otherwise fatigued.