Blake Bennions running

Ran on canal road, with Jake for the first 5. Just went by feel after he was done. Glad I'm not doing 10x2k today. Legs were feeling achy.

Sauna. Planning on rest days and hard or long days for Suana.

Overall enjoyable run but my legs are still feeling a little tired and sore. Might just do some strides tomorrow if they're not 100%, I'm committed to getting them to feeling no soreness/fatigue before going back to hard workouts. Been working on hip mobility and glut/hamstring drills lately.

Easy run with 1 minute push. Legs generally feel good and ready to go but my calves are still tight and sore. I'm hoping Friday they'll feel 100% and I'll do 6x800m.

Extra recovery day. No core or anything that could get any muscles sore. I decided the best option is to take an extra day off, bathe legs, Suana, yoga, recovery drink. My legs are very close to 100% and just have some really stubborn tightness and sensitivity, if this doesn't get me to 100% then I'm just going to call it good enough and go for 6x800m at 5k pace tomorrow regardless.

I think it's really important to be conservative and stay on the safe side of overreaching but I am ready to do something fast.

Perfect sauna weather today.

Was going to do 6x1000m at hm pace with 400m jog recovery. Lacrosse team showed up right after my warm up. Someone waved me over going into the last lap of the 2nd and I guess I subconsciously through in a surge because I was right on pace at 600 (1:59) and then I ran a 73 last lap to finish in 3:12. Very confidence building, those 1000ms were feeling really easy.

Turned out it was Eric that waved at me but I didn't recognize him because he was wearing a hood. Turned out he'd brought his son and daughter there for a track workout. I adjusted my workout and ran 3x600m with Phillip in 2:06, 2:14, 2:13. Cooled down about a mile. Was very windy today but I felt great, nice to just get a little faster stuff on the track done. Next week I'll do a 5k pace workout and a tempo.

20 minute sauna.

Easy with Jake Kolten and Henry. I think this was the perfect week for where I'm at and allowing my body to catch up with recovery. Planning on 13-16 easy tomorrow and then getting back into actual workouts again next week.

12 miles with Jake on the canal road, was going to do a few more after but GI issues tanked me. Might do another 4 miler later tonight.

20 min sauna

A few hours of yard work in the pm.

Hour or two of yardwork and easy run with 2 strides. Rocks are harder to shovel than dirt. Might skip a day off this week since I took two day last week, on the other hand I've got a lot of yardwork this week so we'll see how it goes.

Felt great on the run, best I've felt since before I started doing 20 milers. I'll do a fartlek workout with Jake on Wednesday and then either 6xk or 4xmile on Friday.

Am- Easy with Jake.

Pm- a couple hours of yard work followed by 2 easy miles and 25 min sauna. Feeling good. I'll do a real workout tomorrow but I have to decided what that will be. Ideally I'd do a fast workout on the track but between that taking longer to do and not wanting to run during lacrosse practice I'll probably do some sort of hm pace workout. Maybe 5k repeats starting at marathon pace and progressing to hm pace, maybe 2 mile repeats. We shall see.

Warmed up a couple miles and then did about 6.5 tempo and then cooled down. 20 minute sauna afterwards. Felt really good the first mile and opened in 5:43 uphill, I slowed down down to 5:50s because heart rate was high, felt kinda rough by the end.

Canal run, left calf is a little tight.

Antelope Island is super pretty, my calf is super wrecked. Might have to take a couple days off or at minimum very easy and flat. I think I could run really fast if my body gets out of this funk.

Easy 3 miles and 20 min sauna. Calf was a little tight/sensitive since but coming back pretty good.

On the track with Jake, calf felt pretty good today. Just a bit tingly/sore. We also did about 400m of lunges and some squats. 25 min sauna after broken up with a 5 minute ice session.

I skipped yesterdays run because I tripped over some toys and caught myself hard on my injured leg. Went from about 95% healed to about how it felt Monday... today felt a little better than Tuesday but not as good as yesterday before the set back... If I can avoid aggravating it like that again I think I'll be 100% by next week. Probably fine for me to take half a week off anyways- just need to sharpen a little bit before the race.

Felt really good for 2.5 miles and then my calf started complaining. I ended up walking home and icing it. Feels more tight than weak today.

Easy with Jake Kolten and Henry. Calf felt pretty good, we kept it slow so that helped. But it even kept up on the uphills just fine.

Canal road with Jake. Easy 6.5 miles or so and then a 2 mile tempo at 5:50- I slowed down to easy pace on the hills and then caught back up after them to be a little careful on my soleus.

According to garmin my vo2 max has dropped 5 points in the past week, I'm pretty sure because I've adjusted my form for most of my running this week to avoid stressing the soleus. Really need to break that habit and get my old form back and then I think I'll be just about 100%. My calf was feeling weak and just a hint of sore/achy after the 2 mile tempo so I kept it really easy on the way back to the car.

Overall huge success.

In other news the biting gnats at antelope island might be hatching early this year and if they do my race this weekend will be cancelled so that would suck.

Easy miles with Jake, I ended with a little over a mile at 6:15 pace. Felt great, heart rate peaked at 150. Today was mostly about getting my form back to normal, and my calf had no problems. I think everything is sorted out and I'm ready to do some fast running after a rest day tomorrow.

Track with Kolten Henry and Jake, lots of fun despite being a little sick and calf not f great.

Plan was 6xmile with 2 min recovery and I got through half before my calf was complaining too much, hopefully I didn't overdue it. Calf is pretty sore now, got worse during cool down and after I stopped running.

Splits were 5:16, 5:18, 5:19. Outside of my calf and a bit my lungs I felt great, definitely could have finished this workout if my calf was healthy and maybe even averaging like 5:15 pace. I think sub 33 at salt lake 10k is very doable.

Easy on canal road during the sunset followed by 20 minute sauna.

Still feeling sick but calf felt totally fine today.

The race this weekend got cancelled because the biting gnats have hatched at antelope island... probably for the best not to push my calf that hard yet anyways.

Easy with 2 strides, the 2nd stride was more like a quarter mile push. Still a little sick and also didn't get out until 9 so I felt drained today- calf was complaining just a little so I decided to cut it short. It felt fine on the strides.

It's weird that I think a 9pm run is too late nowadays, having a kid really changes your life. I'm also a lot faster as a dad than I was as a childless adult.

Easy with Jake and Henry. Barely felt my calf today but glad I wasn't risking a 16 mile trail race, and I definitely would have succumbed to the temptation of racing it if it hadn't been cancelled. I do feel like it's been way too long since I've raced and I think finally being at 100% is just around the corner. I should probably just focus on getting a few good weeks at 55-60 mpw without pushing too hard and keep focused on SL10k and crossover/Ogden but I also really want to get racing and I don't really want to have to wait another 4 weeks. Maybe the answer is to try to finish a suu progression run next weekend on the track.

5 87 laps, 6 85 laps, 4 80 laps, 79, 78, 77, 76, all out mile. I know I can make it to the mile cutting down from 79-76 but I should also be able to do that mile and then stay around 5:20 if I'm going to be running sub 70 at Ogden half.

Afternoon

Mile home from dropping off my car

Mile back to the shop to pick it up

Big o did my maintenance inspection for free so that was nice.

8 miles on canal road and then 3 miles at half marathon pace with Jake. Mile cool down.

Hmp splits were 5:13, 5:18, 5:29. First two miles were about 150 ft downhill each and the last mile was rolling hills. I felt 0 discomfort outside of a little bit my calf until half way through and then my calf started increasingly complaining from them on. The 2nd half didn't feel great mostly because of the calf and then we walk jogged the cool down because my calf was pretty depleted.

It's not as bad as Wednesday though and it's clearly just sore/depleted and not a set back. Just iced it and I think I'll be fine to go tomorrow for an easy day before day off Tuesday. I'm getting close to 100% back.

I think for Ogden if raced in current fitness I could do downhill miles at 5:10 or so and the flat miles about 5:25. So it would be tight but that would put me at 69 mid.

Felt pretty good today, but calf wasn't feeling as good as I'd hoped. It wasn't really hurting but felt sensitive. Might skip tomorrows workout, really want to get it fully healthy and it's been at like 98% for like over a week now.