Ethan Cannon

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.