Blake Bennions running

Warmed up 1 mile

Then 12 miles at averaging about 6:20

3.5 miles at just under 5:40

A little under 2 miles cool down with some pushes to keep the legs used to moving fast while tired, averaged about 6:35.

The 3.5 miles at marathon pace felt like I was pushing it. I settled into a good rhythm and didn't actively have to fight to keep the pace but I felt stretched to maintain it. The last mile or two especially my legs were ready to be done running. Not sure if that's how this is supposed to feel, but I got it done. I think I need to ease up a bit on the pace for those first 12 miles, my heart rate was hovering around low 160s for most of that and then went up to 170-180 for the marathon pace.

Really solid first marathon training long run. With good fueling I'm 90% confident I could sub 2:40 on a flat course right now- especially in my endorphin pros. Today was split between gel nimbus and endorphin pros.

I want run sub 2:30 12 weeks from now at salt lake- and that seems achievable if I stick to my plan, especially after 8-10 more runs like this. Also might run like 74 first half and then 80-85 2nd half if I've been dropped by the leaders in order to get back to the grind quicker after the race for des news. If I can run that fast for the first half I should be in 1st or 2nd based off past years but you never know. 4th place and 2:32 vs 6th place and 2:39 wouldn't make a huge difference for my satisfaction with the race but coasting in might get me back to training hard a few days early and give me a bit more time for my Des news block (which is only like 12 weeks after salt lake)- but ideally 2:28-2:32 and a podium is the goal.

Evening- 2 miles with a couple strides followed by 25 minute sauna. Feel pretty good honestly. Very grateful to be in this shape.

Warmed up 1.5 and ran 2x4 mile at mp. First one averaged 5:43 (5:39, 5,:47, 5:44, 5:43), second one averaged 5:38 (5:37, 5:37, 5:41, 5:36). I might have let myself run faster than I should have on the 2nd one- the last mile especially I was feeling good and pick it up a little. Although my heart rate was steady at about 172 for the last 3 miles of the 2nd rep, given that I'm not fully recovered from Sunday that seems about where I should be. I sure hope that's a sustainable marathon pace, that would be awesome.

I just felt good today. I felt like I could have absolutely do another 4 mile rep and I wanted to or just continue on for additional miles at the end of the 2nd rep. My legs were tired from Sunday but the pace didn't feel uncomfortable, it did feel like I was running fast and I had to throw in a couple surges when I drifted off pace a couple times but overall great day.

Easy with a couple strides. Legs felt tired and I didn't feel like running for most of it, felt good towards the end though. Tomorrow morning I have a 2/3x2 mile at half marathon pace planned but might adjust based on feel. I still have another week until my down week and I don't want to overreach this early in the process.

Easy run with 8 extended strides/pushes at about 5k pace. 5 minutes total of about 5:10 pace. Was feeling like a hard workout this morning might be a little aggressive. This week is already a step up from what I've been doing in volume and quality and I thought another huge workout like 4xmile @5:05 or even 2x2 mile at 10:30 might risk overreaching. Better to get my legs moving at that pace but not risk wrecking myself.

Tomorrow I might add a few power miles and/or hill repeats. I kind of like the idea of some lighter stuff thursdays and Fridays. Might do some weeks with 5k mile repeats/half marathon pace 2 mile repeats and some weeks like this depending on how I'm feeling.

All I had time for.

Easy with Henry and Jake, good time indeed.

20 minute sauna. Ready for another big one tomorrow.

Pm- 1 mile trying out the 1080 x v14. I like them so far but need to be careful and make sure I massage out my calves and wear compression socks with them while I get used to the slightly reduced heel to toe drop compared to what I'm used to. I think I'll do the first half of tomorrow's run in these and the 2nd half in the endorphins

Need to bring more fuel next time.

Warmed up 2-3 miles and then did 11-12 focusing on heart rate- staying around 155-165. Ran up and down Weber drive twice for this route. Averaged 6:10 on the downhills and 7:10 on the uphills.

Then 4 miles at marathon pace: 5:32, 5:29, 5:38, 5:45. Mostly downhill on the tempo which is why average was 5:36.

Only ate a banana before and a banana at 10.7 miles so I really need to work on feeling because I was suffering by the end today. Tomorrow is an easy week so my long run 2 weeks from now I need to bring energy gels.

Ended with 20 minute sauna.

Some pros from today:

-Climbed more in this 20 miler (1250) than in all of SLC marathon (900ish)

-Good fast marathon pace miles from 14-18

-Made it through my first 20 mile run

Things to work on:

-Heart rate was too high for marathon pace miles climbing from 167 on the first mile to 179 on thr last one. Ideally that would have stayed in the low 170s.

-Fueling, which may have contributed to having to work harder during marathon pace miles.

In the middle:

-Kinda needed to poop for like the last 12 miles of this run but it never became an emergency... not ideal though. Would have stopped to poop but they took away the only porta potty on this road.

Had time for a shorter run than I'd planned before going to Wyatt's mission call opening. He's going to Maryland, where I lived growing up from grades 5-9.

Probably good today was shorter, tomorrow will be a really good opportunity to rip a fast hard workout and my legs should be feeling fresh.

Way too aggressive in my plan for today during my 4th week of hard training and consistent mileage building. Should have stuck with my plan of 2x4 at marathon pace. Instead I decided to go for 3x5k at half marathon pace because I wanted to get my legs used to running faster.

This was not the way, nor was it the day.

I should have switched to 4 x 2 mile repeats on the track to train my legs at the faster pace. It was also rainy today which is my running kryptonite.

My 5k pace averages were 5:29 (5:28, 5:26, 5:34) 5:44 (5:30, 5:48, 5:55), 5:45 (5:48, 5:46, 5:42). So 5:39 for the 9 miles of reps altogether.

I realized my legs were super flat during the first rep, felt like I was constantly in kick mode trying to stay faster than marathon pace. Marathon pace felt comfortable and 5:30 pace didn't hurt- it was just really hard to keep pushing that pace.

Rep 2 was even harder and I figured 9 miles at half marathon pace was just not in the cards today and tried to hold on for marathon pace the rest of the workout. Overcorrected a bit and was also just bummed I had to adjust the workout. Rep 3 I adjusted my mindset and pulled through- although it was weird because the uphill were way easier to go sub 6 pace than the downhills. Downhills I kept slowing to 5:55-6:00 pace and uphills I'd feel good surging to 5:35.

I think my legs are just shot and I've put off my down week too long. Easy tomorrow and then something fast at mile-5k pace but not too strenuous Friday to work on that turnover.

25 minute sauna afterwards

Easy today with a couple miles on the grass.

Easy with 6 30-60 second slightly uphill pushes. 2-3 miles on grass.

25 min sauna

Easy with Kolten Henry for the first half and Jake for the last 8 miles. Very solid week of mileage. Ready for an easy week. Think I'll go

Sunday- easy 10-13

Monday- 6x800m at 5k pace

Tuesday- rest

Wednesday- 4-6 easy

Thursday- 6-8 with 4 mp

Friday- 4-6 easy

Saturday- Easy 8

With a goal of limiting to 40-45 miles next week. Might also experiment doing a two a day Thursday and extra day off off Friday.

25 minute sauna

Decided to do my long run tomorrow because it got dark before I could get out to run and I didn't want to be stuck on the pavement. Not that I was today, I did most of today's run on the fields behind Orion. But tomorrow I'm looking forward to some trails and trying to stave off the temptation of segment hunting. I think I'll have tomorrow be 10-12 miles and just go however fast I want to go and then I'll do 1 other workout like 6x800m or 4 mile mp on Thursday.

Gully run. I love running there so much, I've gotta make these runs happen more often than a couple times per year.

I did the gully long run with an uphill pickup and a couple steady miles and then 4 miles in the lower gully.

I got the segment record on shut up hill which was really fun, .34 miles 8.1% grade in 1:53 (5:30 pace). GAP is 3:57 so according to that this was about the equivalent of a sub 2:00 800m. Idk about that but I'll take the optimism.

Easy run in the snow. Would have done another couple miles if I had time also would have liked to sauna. Nice to have the storm hit during recovery week.

Cold and easy.

25 min sauna

Ran up to Weber drive and back. Felt good today, although there's still a little bit of lingering leg fatigue. Probably just nature of marathon training that legs take a little longer to adapt to high volume of quality miles.

25 min sauna

Easy with Wyatt and Henry. Went a little longer than planned but felt nice and ready to get back to work.

Frustrating today. Started my run too late and ended up in the dark on busy roads for the marathon pace miles and kind of tanked them.

Ran in pleasent view and parked my car with Gus and water at shady lane park. I took gu at 40 and 80 minutes and I wish I had taken some around mile 17 as well because I was feeling on top of the world at mile 16 and drained at mile 19. Good news is that I like gu a lot and if anything I think it prevented GI issues.

After a mile warm up I did a mile steady, then 2 mile uphill at marathon pace, then 10 more steady, then 5 that were supposed to be marathon pace but kinda dropped between that and steady. It's harder to run fast and stay on pace when it's dark, especially with all the cars driving by so my eyes never adjusted. Oh well. I was going to do 6 and ended up doing 5 in 5:40, 5:37, 5:54, 6:09, 6:10. I'd be concerned about my fitness except my heart rate never rose above mid 160s for that entire 5 mile mp effort. I think I was just drained and the poor visibility was screwing with me.

Turned the last mile into a cool down and then cooled down another mile at home.

20 min sauna.

Next week I'm going to do a workout I saw cam levins do recently. 10x2k with 1k recovery at steady pace. I'll do 5:40-5:45 on the ons and 6:20-6:30 on the offs, maybe a little faster on tbr last two reps if I'm feeling good. I think that will have be a huge confidence builder if I can do that. I'm also going to stop going to pleasant view for these and just use my neighborhood.

20 minute sauna. Legs feeling pretty good today. Sauna plus leg recovery system massage post run is a great combo.

Easy in the rain. Actually didn't mind the rain today.

Not well planned or executed, but confidence building. To be fair the goal today was just to get a feel for pace and what I could handle on flat selections of Ogden half marathon.

Ran 3x2 miles at goal half marathon pace. Went out top hot and had to reel it back in. Fortunately I'd planned to give myself like 4-5 mins rest between reps and that turned into a mile easy. Goal today was just to get the legs moving faster and see what sub 70 half pace would feel like.

Splits were

5:10, 5:22

5:24, 5:23

5:22, 5:19

Low 5:20s on the roads felt pretty sustainable. Definitely had to throw in some surges now and then to keep the pace from dropping to where I'm more comfortable around 5:40, but I wasn't suffering on the last 2 reps. I think my actual half marathon pace rn is probably closer to 5:30, hopefully a little under that. But with Ogdens course being net 600 foot drop I think sub 70 is possible in May.

My main takeaway from today is that 5:24 pace on a flat hm course would be doable with a little work.

Salt lake Marathon declined my elite application which is fair considering I've never run a marathon and I ran a 77 in my only road half. But between that and some friends signing up for the Ogden half recently I'm tempted to go back to my original plan of sub 70 at ogden half and then sub 2:30 at Des news marathon. I think I might make my goal at Des news a little more aggressive, like 2:27.

I also feel my salt lake training plan has been a little rushed. I'm trying to squeeze in a lot of high intensity and high volume into a short window and between taper and recovery running SLC would take out like 5-6 weeks of quality training.. . Would be frustrating if I end up missing my goal and lowering my potential for Des news. It would probably be smarter to give myself time for plenty of good quality targeted weeks... but I also think I really could hold 5:40s pace for a marathon and it's only 2 months away And there's no guarantee I'm in this shape again next year... Hard to decide but I'm leaning towards skipping salt lake.

Low on time today. Legs felt tired and sore.

Easy with Kolten and Jake. Felt good today, legs are sore but not feeling bad.

I think I'm going to adjust my training plan to long runs of 16-20 miles with a 20+ mile day once or twice per month instead of trying to hit 4-5 22-24 mile runs before I would start tapering in April. I think skipping salt lake and going for Des news gives me the best chance at healthy successful year of running.

Easy with Jake. I have decided to let my legs get back to 100% before doing any long runs or speed work beyond strides. My legs even felt sore or at least never felt 100% even at the end of my recovery week, and with targeting a marathon 5 months out, a half marathon in May and a trail race 4 weeks from now there's no reason to be pushing the edge of over training. Legs felt good today, I think they'll be 100% by Tuesday/Wednesday. I've been wanting to do a fast mile repeats workout on for a long time now.

25 min sauna with a minute break after the first 15. Felt hot today.