Blake Bennions running

2 mile warm up to the track

5x1000m at 5k pace with 600m recovery between reps. I was shooting for 3:30 but I ended up going 3:22, 3:19, 3:29, 3:22, 3:25. So an average of 3:23 and on pace for just under 17 minutes. A good amount faster than I was planning on, not going to complain about that. Hopefully this summer I'll be able to run a 5k under 17 minutes!

4.5 easy miles on the treadmill. Initally was just going to do 2. I've been doing a lot of work demoliting the hardwood on our main floor the past few days and have lacked the time/energy to get out and run. Also preparing to defend my thesis in a couple weeks. It'll be nice once february is over.

A few laps around the neighborhood. Lungs were pretty irritated from the wood dust yesterday, should have worn a mask. February is going to be super busy, I'll be happy if I can keep getting over 20 miles per week.

Went out for a 7 mile easy run but during mile 3 I ran into a fellow runner at the track and we got into somewhat of a race. I sped up and ended up running miles 4 and 5 in 5:40 and 5:45. Felt pretty good, tough but really pretty good.

Made me realize that 6:00 pace is pretty close to 5:40. It felt a lot more like I remember this feeling back when I was in college and high school. Made me pretty confident I could run a 17 minute 5k at the moment. And I also think it's possible for me to run half marathon at 5:40/5:50 pace in a year if I keep slowly building my mileage and speed like this. Today was a big confidence builder for me, I feel like my fitness is coming back!

Easy 4 miles

Frustrating run. I couldn't catch my breath for the entire run after the first 3/4 miles. It's okay though, just need to keep running, get my asthma medication, and get back to doing my nasal rinses.

I'm going to start new goals of at least 2 runs with marathon pace miles each week, and at least 1 run with 5k pace workouts. I'm not sure if I'll be ready for a marathon this fall, but we'll see how it goes. I definitely want to break 17 in the 5k this summer though. I think I'll do a time trial this or next weekend to break 18.

Perfect weather today, went for a walk with Becca and then a run. Makes me excited for the spring. 70° in february is pretty special.

Also I took a closer look at my run yesterday, turns out my garmin was screwing me on the 1.08 mile loops. It was super inaccurate, all the loops it tracked were really far within the actual loop. I was fighting really hard to keep on pace but my watch kept jumping between 6:00/6:10 and 7:00 and then even 8:00 when I backed off a bit. I used the crop feature on strava to measure what my watch counted the loops as and it said they were .9 to 1.0. If that's on average giving me .9 miles for every mile I ran- or course I was feeling frustrated with how it was going. Geez. It did the same thing today, I'll have to look into why that's happening.

Celebratory 2 mile run after defending my thesis. Feels good to be done! I ran at like 8pm and when I was leaving the park where the track is a bunch of high schoolers showed up and one of them blocked the entrance to the park with their truck... so that was weird, probably just some silly teenager stuff, I think I saw an air soft gun. Anyways, I threw some strides in-it was great to get out and run!

Past few week have been crazy finishing up my thesis and demoing and prepping the floors in my house. This weekend I worked for 30 hours straight with just a 1.5 hour nap during that stretch... but it's all done now. Tomorrow I'll start out slow and slowly build to marathon pace and then I'll stay at marathon pace for a few miles. Maybe I'll do a couple laps at goal 5k pace as well.

Ended up just doing 4.25 at whatever pace gelt good. I think I'll just try and run each day the rest of the week and see what mileage I end up at. If I'm feeling good I'll throw in some marathon, 10k, or 5k stuff.

Another day in the most temperate state in the USA... apparently. It got up to 72 today after being in the 60s yesterday. Highs will mostly remain in the 50s and 60s for the rest of February. Been a strange winter for Ohio, I love it.

I ran in my neighborhood and at the track. Felt good!

Great weather today. Usually high 40s/low 50s is a little chilly for me, but with no wind it actually feels great. Ideally it would never be windy.

I tried a new workout where I did a mile at marathon pace, 2 laps at 5k pace, and 1 lap at goal mile pace. It was really fun. I think I might do 3/4 reps of it later this week.