diff --git a/.github/workflows/docs.yml b/.github/workflows/docs.yml
index 4b95511d82f5..9e1cbcfad76f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/docs.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/docs.yml
@@ -12,9 +12,12 @@ on:
 jobs:
     docs:
       name: build and deploy docs
-      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+      # not using latest due to issues with pip user packages, see
+      # https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/10781 and
+      # https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/10636
+      runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
 
-      steps:      
+      steps:
         - name: Checkout code
           uses: actions/checkout@v2
           with:
@@ -23,9 +26,9 @@ jobs:
           run: export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
         - name: install dependencies
           run: |
-            pip install --break-system-packages sphinx
-            pip install --break-system-packages sphinx-rtd-theme
-            pip install --break-system-packages sphinx-multiversion
+            pip install sphinx
+            pip install sphinx-rtd-theme
+            pip install sphinx-multiversion
         - name: build docs
           run: |
             echo "Repo = ${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}"
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 7405fd170490..bbd37785d197 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 - [[PR 1161]](https://github.com/parthenon-hpc-lab/parthenon/pull/1161) Make flux field Metadata accessible, add Metadata::CellMemAligned flag, small perfomance upgrades
 
 ### Changed (changing behavior/API/variables/...)
+- [[PR1203]](https://github.com/parthenon-hpc-lab/parthenon/pull/1203) Pin Ubuntu CI image
 - [[PR1177]](https://github.com/parthenon-hpc-lab/parthenon/pull/1177) Make mesh-level boundary conditions usable without the "user" flag
 - [[PR 1187]](https://github.com/parthenon-hpc-lab/parthenon/pull/1187) Make DataCollection::Add safer and generalize MeshBlockData::Initialize
 - [[Issue 1165]](https://github.com/parthenon-hpc-lab/parthenon/issues/1165) Bump Kokkos submodule to 4.4.1