Blake Bennions running

In Rome, tried running to the pantheon but Google maps was going crazy and my phone died so I just found my parents and walked with them. Pantheon was amazing, kind of wonder what it looked like before the Catholics got to it too. It was raining, which was really pretty, they had the middle of the pantheon closed off so people wouldn't slip on the wet marble.

5.3 miles in Siena, spent the past few days in different cities throughout Umbria, that area is so pretty! Its much much cleaner than Rome, Rome was incredible and full of amazing food, structures, art, and history. But like any city its size (especially with it's amount of tourists) is also full of street peddlers, litter, hectic roads (more so than anywhere else I've been), and smoke, so getting out to the beatufiful countryside has been that much more a breathtaking change.

Out of all the great things I've seen here Trevi fountain tops everything else in Rome for me, and in general so far, it blows away all expectations! There's so much in Rome though, wow, we stayed just a couple hundred meters from the colosseum and forum so that was really cool to walk out of the apartment to.

So I will be here in Siena again tomorrow and and then its on to Florence, Ravenna, Venice, and Milan before I head to Romania for the study abroad section of Europe. I imagine it will be easier to run in Romania but we'll see. I've been doing some core, especially pushups and hand stand pushups, I've run a little over the past few days but not a ton. Most I ran on any one of those days was maybe a mile, but I have been hiking around 5 miles a day through these hilly cities.

5 miles of running while my parents biked in a small town next to Siena, long name, but a nice biking town. Averaged mid 6 minute pace and that felt pretty hard, not a good sign of my fitness haha. To be fair I was speeding up to low 5 minute pace at many times to keep up and at other times had to slow down so probably a harder way to average that pace than keeping a nice steady 6:30 or so. But these past two days have had good runs, and I'll have to do some core before I shower. Tomorrow I will be in Florence so I'm not sure what running options are or how much time I will have.

2 miles in Padova, didn't run in Florence and was distracted in Ravenna so didn't there either.

Good run today, 4.7 in 30:00. I felt like I was at a fast pace but it wasn't hard. And that's 6:20s pace so it's a good sign. Also went to Venice today, favorite part of the trip so far, the feel of that city is incredible. Its really pretty and I just had a lot of fun there! Found some cool stuff for Wenda too!

Ran in the Dolomites today, woah it's really beautiful up there. Had a lot of elevation gain today, long steep inclines that dropped me to a slow pace, but I didn't walk which is the goal when it's like that.

But.. On the way back I came across some really pretty horses and at first I just stopped so I wouldn't startle them. But then I took out my phone and started taking pictures, I took a video and was just messing around so I bowed to the horse like Hargrid says to do in Harry Potter with hippogriffs- and the horse (who had been standing a couple meters sea immediately came up and started sniffing me and nudging me with its head and letting me pet it! And then it's friend came over and I just hung out and pet them for a while, they were so friendly and cute! So I got some awesome pictures and videos with them and then finished my run. That was a really cool fun experience though and definitely goes down as one of my favorites, running takes you on some cool adventures over the years. I think trying to come back so fast after my mission coupled with the really intense training program at suu kind of burned me out along with the frustration of injuries, which I'm pretty sure are all healed.

So I'm on a good fresh new start with my running, and I've been doing strength training so I'm bulking up a bit. But that will help with Spartan race and I like lifting and being strong, and I like running fast, so I'll just find a good balance that I enjoy and get better at both! My primary focus of exercise is on enjoyment and health, not competition anymore, but that's no gonna stop me from trying to knock off some pros at spartan at the end of July. I'm feeling strong and fast this week and I'm relatively out of shape compared to where I plan on being in 10 weeks, so those spartan guys better watch out!

Got stranded out some place in cluj so I just ran back instead of figuring out buses/taxi. Glad I did as I got to the hotel a full two hours ahead of my roommate.

4 miles in Romania, miles went 6:59, 6:26, 6:26, 6:25, 6:54, hiked up a steep uneven hill to get back to the hotel the last part of mile 4 and past to get to 4.25.

1480 steps up Poenari castle, it took me 11 minutes, so over 2 steps per second! Good workout amongst 7/8 hours of bumpy driving.

Awesome run in a small and pretty Romanian city, had some incredible mountains and I went to the peak of a small mountain/hill with my run, got a couple good pictures too! Will write more about Romania in once I'm home.

Solid run this morning in cluj. Ran out 2.1 and back. I have to check out of the hotel at 12 and my flight isn't until 6 so I'll figure out things to do and maybe look at more shops while I wait. Will be back in Utah tomorrow night, which will be like 7am two days from now for me. Learned a lot and saw many amazing things this month!

Woke up and had an amazing breakfast in Frankfurt. Then I left the hotel to find a good place to run, I found a nearby trail that went through a bunch of fields. So I took off and tried to map out a good mile time trial route, what I found wasn't perfect but it really pretty. The trail started out fairly uneven and took me downhill which wasn't ideal because that meant my time trial would be uphill, it also took me across a road that seemed empty when I first crossed. I went out an extra quarter mile to make sure I would have enough space coming back. The trail looked much better the farther I went but I only had 30 mins until I needed to be back by that point so I just turned and started.

I went out strong and the first third of a mile went by fast! I was on pace for like a 4:50 so that was good, then I ran into the road I needed to cross but unfortunately there were like 6 or 7 cars that came through right as I was getting there so I had to slow down and run on the shoulder for a second waiting for them to pass. It got a little steeper after that but I kept a decent pace and then kicked the last 400m. My time was 5:04 but I'm pretty sure I would have run under 5:00 for sure if it weren't for the traffic, and definitely had it been flat.

Overall a good workout the morning I'm flying out of Frankfurt! And now I have motivation to run another mile trial tis weekend at the Brighton track, gonna start speed now as I'm 2 months out from the Spartan race. So the plan is 6 weeks of hard workouts, hopefully will start at 25-30 miles per week and work my way up to 40-50 per week in July. Then the last two weeks I will run 5-10 miles per day and do light speed to taper. I will be in salt lake most of the next couple months I think so probably no retro fitness :/, will just have to use the rec center. Not ideal but if there's a will there's a way! I will also do upper body workouts with benching, curls, pull ups and other such things, and some good ab workouts.