Ethan Cannon

Decided last night to run hard today. It was raining but warm (60 degrees) when we started out. I ran with my wife and baby for a little over a mile. Then I did a mile warm up till I got to University Ave where I wouldn't have to wait for all the lights. I decided to go 25 minutes out, knowing that would be well over 4 miles. I decided to take the UMN bridge, even though that means running down the hill and up the big incline on west river road. The rain wasn't bad until partway through there was some lightning and it started coming down fairly hard. Still, my shoes were never saturated (although my clothes were "washing machine" level wet) and the wind was present but never terrible. I went pretty hard at first, and definitely felt like I was taking a beating and slowed partway through (you know you're going fast when you feel tired and see you've only been runnning for 7 minutes, and a lot of it downhill). I slowed further on the way back, though I was pleasently surprised that my split on the way back was 26:03, not too far off the 25:32 I did on the way out. Then I ran hard to the Co-op, which coincided beautifully with 1:00:00 of hard running. Turns out that was 11.36 miles overall, 5:18 pace. (5:12 on the way out, then 5:18 segment 2, and 5:23 the home stretch). That was good I guess. Nearly a 1:09 half marathon on a hard but totally on-a-whim solo effort in a pair of old shoes, on a rainy day, with a serious hill and some minor hills both ways (one brief stop at half way). If I had to guess my half marathon fitness right now, I'd conservatively guess 1:07, but on a good day I think 1:06 is very possible and 1:05 is unlikely but not out of the question. The downside is there are no nearby races that offer prize money where I can test my fitness. I just looked last night and they all seem to be raising money for some cause. The competitive ones don't offer money either and are super expensive. I was really banking on having competitions for cash to keep me fired up after college running. I need some sort of plan.