Blake Bennions running

Signed up for the elite heat of the Spartan race in July today. I've also made a commitment to increase my mileage and start blogging here again.

The past few months I've been running about 10 miles per week and lots of strength training, haven't put on too much weight which is good. Also this semester has the potential to be my first 4.0 ever!

I will be in Romania and Italy (Germany a little) for all of May, so mostly I will be running and doing core there.

I've been doing pretty well at benching, my typical workout is 3x10 at 185, 175, 175. Once I get up to 3x10 at 205 I will stop increasing weight and just maintain and maybe increase reps at a lower weight, but I started at 135 so I'm almost there. I've also been doing pull ups, rope pull, ab workouts, and this awesome jumping machine at my gym.

Going forward I plan on doing more core, and giving myself less rest between workouts at the gym. Also I'm staying in cedar city this summer and will be doing an intership for the school.

Good day of training, monkey bars, pull ups, rope pull, abs at gym with running before between and after.

Ran to the gym and did pull ups monkey bars, and some abs. I was about to do rope pull but I noticed my hands (which hand been pretty blistered) were in pretty bad condition, one of the blisters had popped and they weren't feeling good at all so I washed them off and ran home. Later went rock climbing with my Wenda, hands still beat up but were better. I should invest in some good workout gloves to prevent my hands from getting too nasty. Tomorrow is probably rest day as I'm gonna be pretty busy, and its probably good for my hands. Might go for a run if I get some time.

Also learned that the Spartan I signed up for is gonna be pretty intense, it's on the national championship circuit so all the pros will be there. So top 10 chances definitely take a hit with that but we'll just see how things play out. I mean most the pros are ex trail/mountain runners and I've had some success with that so if I can get up my mileage, and keep working my upper body, I think this might be a really good fit for me. Regardless of how I finish, I'm really liking the new challenge and am looking forward to the race!

Ran to the gym at 7:00 pace and did bench, some other arm workouts, monkey bars with a lot of different stuff and pull ups, rope pull, and ab workouts. Then I ran back averaging 6:20. Pretty good workout. Hands are still pretty torn up, I have gloves which make it easier on them but they still burned a little today.

Solid workout day, ran to the gym and back and later ran home from Wendas to get some extra miles.

Super busy week this week, today went to the gym before going to kramers reception.

Ran half a mile with Wenda and then ran to the gym, did my usual workouts, I'm realizing more how large a part breathing and technique of doing some of these workouts for longer reps. So I will figure that out, monkey bars are easy though and that's probably the hardest Spartan workout, well the weird handle monkey bars, fortunately my gym has a good simulation for that. But I want running low 6 minute pace to be recovery over 8 miles by the time of the race, and I want to be good enough at the obstacles that I don't even feel them.

So training shall continue, and when I get back from Romania I'm going to increase the load to every day, maybe one rest day per week. In Romania I will concentrate on running and core, and burpees.

I also worked out with Wenda tonight and we did a 5 minute burpee challenge at the end, I did 77 and she did 55. Spartan burpees include a pushup so it's a good leg and arm workout, I guess. Certainly was pretty tough. On the list for males my age the categories go hire a coach, do more burpees, healthy, and Spartan fit. Healthy is 70 and Spartan fit is 85 so I got right in the middle for my first time. When I come back for Romania I will try again and so over 85, and the next time I do it I will get 100 in 5 minutes.