Ethan Cannon

8 by 400 in trainers, and I added a 200. 60 seconds rest. 65, 65, 66, 65, 65, 66, 66, 66, 30. Felt pretty doable even with the wind. I did a very similar workout one year ago on much faster so the idea was for this to feel easy. We'll see on Thursday. 

9 miles before it started raining

Pre meet

It was dumping rain all day. Thankfully nothing during my race. You felt the wind, but mostly just when you weren't running behind someone. Before the race, my coach told me to not worry about splits but just compete. I think that was good and makes me feel better about how I did. So, the race started and the pacer had just told us he was going to hit 66s (13:45 pace). This was reasonable given that that pace was just a hair faster than several of the guys in the field have run. Several laps in, I was hanging with the group (starting in dead last, but worked my way up a couple spots) and not struggling too bad. I didn't know how to feel cuz I was still right there with everyone, but some guy yelling splits to someone said we were hitting 67-69 pace. Sure enough, my second lap was 69.7! So, pacing was bad for the leaders but wasn't bad for me. When people started dropping, I surged to catch up. My fastest lap was 1800-2200 in 66.0 (closed in 66 mid). Hit 2 miles in 9:03 feeling tired but alright, but apparently I slowed down a lot, hitting 70-71 after that. I soon recognized it wasn't going to be a fast race, but I kept battling. Don't have regrets about my effort even though it was not my best. A lot of people didn't run fast actually (for example, basically everyone in my heat was sub 14 or sub 8 and I beat like 6 of them), so maybe the humidity (80%) affected us. Going into this race I thought I was in 14:05-14:10 shape under good conditions. 

AM: Gorgeous spring morning run in North Carolina. Felt tired as expected but nothing too serious.

PM: 5 miles. Trying to catch up on mileage

Today we went to the American Tobacco trail. I think it must be famous among runners because we saw a ton of good ones there, including a lot of the teams that were at the meet. It was pretty cool. Its right on the edge of what is developed in the Raleigh area though so its sad to see the forest being cut down to build houses. I ran with the guys around 7 minute pace for the first 6.25 miles, then they turned around and I picked it up so they wouldn't have to wait too long for me. That was like 6 minute pace to the turnaround point and it felt downhill (turns out it really isn't that much downhill) so I thought it would slow it back down from there but it turns out I averaged 5:41 on the way back. Felt pretty easy and quick, like the wind was blowing me uphill. I was trying to be just gentle enough with my sore achilles tendon. I slowed down from 5:30 pace to 6:00 pace once the paved section ended and I had to run on sandy gravel again.