Ethan Cannon

Not sure how far I ran today (again). I ran for about 60 minutes easy with my nephew, and then 40 minutes (harder) by myself, totaling 1:38 though. It was overcast today and very pretty outside. We went on a bigger street near the lake which was decently flat and had a big shoulder. We even got to run on a sidewalk for about 30 seconds!

Last run in Leesburg, with my nephew. Not happy to see my distance. I don't care much about my pace when I was running together, but it's the pace I ran solo that is concerning.

7:05 pace, Res woods. Legs feeling kind of heavy recently. 

6:51 pace was faster than I had been in previous days, but I still felt a little flat. I ran East River Flats for the first time in my new place. That was my No. 2 rated weekday run in the past, but I didn't love it today, in part due to some bad smells over by the transitway. There might be some sort of transfer facility over there or something. So, I'm still at work revising my routes. This one takes you relatively quickly from 730 feet elevation to 940. While it is still not a "Medford level" run in terms of elevation change, it is at least in the ballpark. It's incredible how much hillier my runs became after moving.  

6:48 pace, Como lake loop. Felt tired again and blistery, even though it was nice weather (ie, not sweaty). That's not a good look for these shoes. The run felt very long. I think it's a combination of it being a loop, me not having run this particular route a million times, and me being tired. Hopefully each of those things will be resolved and I can enjoy this route as I think I should. 

6:42 pace, west river road. Today was a breathrough for me! I decided to experiment with getting to river road via Raymond and Pelham. I did, and at least today I felt like the trek was hardly unpleasant. You get to the neighborhood in 2 miles and should normally get to river road in about 2.3, leaving a very long stretch to enjoy east or west river road. On top of that, it may open up a new route, as there is plenty of enjoyable running north on west river from Lake street (as opposed to Franklin). Unfortunately Pelham is under construction, but if the sidewalks remain mostly open, I found a detour that may not be too bad. 

The Twin Cities have good running, for sure. But years ago I recognized that my route identification skills make a huge difference in the enjoyability of my runs (no shade on midtown greenway, but...)

6:01 pace, lake Johanna. Starting from my new place doesn't put you that much further along the trail, but I was still able to run along more trail in the lake Johanna area than I ever had previously (winding around to finish in Chatham trails). The biggest discomfort for me today? Blisters. Idk what to do with those and why they've been coming for me, but they are no fun. 

In addition to deer and a buck, I saw a racoon family for the first time I remember. 

6:55 pace, east river road. I tried running on the side path and it wasn't good right now.
From my new place, it seems clear that east river road will definitely take a back set compared with west river road, a reversal from how it had been previously.  

About 6:45 pace. I ran to Res Woods via Como, and the trails from the cemetery aren't marked online so it makes accuracy a little more questionable. Overall it was a nice run, although I was very dissapointed that the fairgrounds are already closed. On top of that, it appears they are redoing the roof of a big local building nearby, which is such a bummer after I just moved from a place where they were doing that. I didn't catch too many whiffs of tar today though. 

Workout at Como park. The path that goes along the south side of Como avenue is just a hair short of 800 meters. If it was a little longer I wouldn't have had to slam on the brakes at the end of each of my 6 reps (<2:30 rest for each). I added 3.5 seconds as a distance adjustment to each rep and after doing that adjustment got the following times: 2:20, 2:24, 2:18, 2:24, 2:17, 2:23. Because one direction was more downhill then the other, each rep in the same direction was faster than the one previous. 

6:58 pace, east river flats. I was going to do west river road, which may become a weekly staple over the next couple of years, but the construction on Pelham is now blocking the sidewalk I would need to get there relatively efficiently. It said the sidewalk would be open throughout construction, but I guess I'm happy they are at least making progress. 

6:55 pace, Farmers fields. This was my first time doing this route from my new place. I have nothing major to report, other than the fact that the HealthPartners clinic is building its entire new, larger clinic across the street on the field! This means that I have to turn on Eustis instead of running through the field. TBH I'm tired of all of the construction / closures that are interfering with my running routes. I don't think I will be able to settle down with new routes until mid-September, and will probably need to take Eustis permanently as the construction isn't scheduled for completion until Fall 2027. 

6 flat pace, right on the dot, if MapMyRun can be taken seriously. I did west river road today. I figured they wouldn't be working on Pelham today, but I didn't get the courage to run through the construction straight to river road until I saw another runner do it. There was some sort of run/race thing on west river road today. It was my first WRR long run, and I got to go all the way to the parking lot at Ft Snelling, in just 16.5 miles. That's awesome! I did the side trails on the way out, and did a 54321 workout on the way back. At about the turnaround, it started raining. We've needed rain so I was grateful, even though that tore up my feet a bit. Still, my feet weren't that bad- I've realized my Under Armour shoes are what is really causing the issue. 

6:56 pace, Res Woods via Como. I got 2 bugs in my eyes. I think it is a season when they tend to be out more. This won't be an official route yet since the fairgrounds are closed. I guess it's the official route for one month of the year. 

6:48 pace, east river road. 

16x400 with median ~22 seconds rest on the road north of Midland Hills golf club. That area is a nice little neighborhood, although Cleveland was really bad today. Hopefully 280 reopening will help out with that. I ran (69, 66, 69, 71), (70, 67, 68, 72), (69, 66, 70, 72), (69, 66, 69, 69). The first 2 reps of each set were downhill. I think each one was about 1 second short. Based on that, I was probably hitting about 4:40 pace. I liked this workout, not because I ran it fast or anything, but I just like it. 

6:47 pace, to Como park and then on to Wheelock parkway. 

6:50 pace, Farmer's fields.

6:05 pace, east river road. On a positive note, I ran all the way into Crosby Farm park, such that I got probably close to 5 out of the 16.82 miles starting with Hidden Falls park. The pace was dissapointing though. Even for a run down in that area, I would have thought I could have slogged my way to sub-6 on a normal day. 

About 7 minute pace, Res woods via Como. Need to get that out before it gets busy for 1.5 weeks. I smelled tar again in Res woods. It's weird because if you look at a map, there's nothing but residential nearby. I can't imagine where it would be coming from. 

6:51 pace, west river road

Today was a good run for 2 reasons. I did a workout of 6xK on the Cleveland ave route (only the north side, keeping it flat), with the expectation that tomorrow that area will be flooded with traffic. The idea for the workout and number of reps came from my pre-Victory training last year. The first good thing is that I found a new way of getting to the soft surface trail that avoids the construction on Como. I can go straight through the quiet SAP neighborhood, go through Breck woods, and make it to the soft surface in 1.35 miles without ever going on Como. This is a huge win (in non-winter conditions) and interestingly, I may never have discovered it it weren't for the construction. The second nice thing is that my times were pretty good. It is actually the fastest average I have ever had doing Ks on this route, not taking number of reps into account. This was surprising because I felt so tired beforehand, even right before the workout. Not like fatigued legs, like actual fatigue. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as I have seen previously that things like how I slept the night before don't correlate at all with performance. I ran 3:00, 3:00, 3:00, 2:58, 3:03, 2:57. There was a headwind going north. 

6:56 pace, east river flats. Day 1 of state fair. Bumper to bumper traffic all the way to the train tracks made me grateful I took Scudder to spend less time on Raymond. Overall though, it wasn't too bad. 

6:53 pace, west river road north. 

Beautiful morning for a run after the rain had subsided. This was a longer MLR and since my LRs have been shorter recently, it didn't feel like much of a break. I did a new route- "Roseville chain of parks". If Footpath was correct, I could do this route and hit 14 miles almost bang on. 6:05 pace. 

7:02 pace, west river road. Steamy outside today.