Blake Bennions running

I ran up to the rec center for 2 miles as a warm up and then did a good workout with pull ups, bench, curls, squats at 205, abs and such. Some lady came and unracked the bench and started using it for squats while I went to get water after my 2nd set and had been using the machine for 5 minutes so that was annoying, especially cause there's a machine that's dedicated for squats that was empty right next to it and the rec center only has one bench machine.

After that I ran over to the Brighton track but found out school is still in session for the kids there so I didn't use the track and ran around through the neighborhoods to get up past 5 miles. Then I did another set of bench at 185, curls, and pull ups and ran back home. Increased mileage day feels good and I still feel fairly strong! Definitely lost a step with strength though, and I lost 5-8 pounds in Europe so I will work to get that back. We'll see how well I can

Decent run today, it was warm. Tomorrow I'm going to weights and a track work out, not sure if I'm gonna do a ladder or a mile time trial, or both. Both sounds fun. Also I'm going to start my decision process between going to work in Texas or working at snowbird.

Ran to the track and did a workout, I did 2 hard 400s and was feeling like death, it was hot and didn't realize I how out of shape I am with track workouts. It was the middle of the day so there was no shade. I had that feeling where your body is dead and overheating and you kind of want to lie down and die. So I just recovered and did 2 more 100m sprints with plenty of rest and jogged back to the rec center and did weights and core, still sore from last time. I was still feeling pretty dead until got home, geez I think tomorrow I will work out during the night so its cooler and maybe try to another track work out. I'm certainly in different shape than I've ever been in, we'll see how all this work starts paying off soon.

Rough day, rough past month in some ways. But now its time to move forward. Didn't run today, that's ok, tomorrow I will run fast and hard.

The first day is always the hardest. Felt like crap but got out and ran to the gym and did a good workout and came back. I have the cutest niece in the world, there were good things about today.

Today started out pretty hard but got better. I had lots of ice cream, I'm going to play basketball with my old friends Nick and Hayden soon. Probably gonna see Devry again too, haven't seen him in 3 years!

Tonight I played tennis with my brother and then ran the cottonwood heights 5k course and back home. My pace was 6:45 so not too bad considering I was going pretty easy. I also did a bunch of pull ups and oh up bar workouts in between tennis and running. Pretty good stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to keep looking for jobs, work on study abroad stuff, study for the gre, and do gym and a track work out. And I'll find sometime to watch ntg as well, oh and more time with my niece and family will be awesome!

Today is the 6th anaversary of the first time I ran a mile in less than 5 minutes. My hip was feeling weird last night/this morning so I hot tubbed and stretched and now its good. After hot tubbing I benched 3x10 at 185, felt really strong, curled 2x10 and 35, also felt good, did pull ups, and some back workouts. Then I went home watched some tv and did some writing. Then I went back out for my run, I ran up to the rec center and did the 5k loop, then did 10 pull ups, abs, and ran home. Arms are sore, going to do some burpees before bed, perhaps the type Wenda showed me with weights.

Ran to the park with my brother, did pull ups and a ton of monkey bars, and more hand hold swing things. Maybe this isn't a bad place to train for Spartan.

I'm sore from yesterdays bench workout, that's good, workouts feel a lot more rewarding when you know you'll get stronger due to them. By the end of the summer i want to be benching 3x10 at 225, we'll see how that goes. Next week I mifhrbmove up to 205 for a set and see how it goes. Also want to do more back workouts, will probably do dead lifts. And runningwise I want to be up at 40 per week by July.

Also helped Kiley surprise Jake for his birthday which was so much fun!! Hopefully will go for another run tonight.

So I did go for another run, I decided to run a mile time trial. I'd eaten way too much food today, I was feeling really full by the end of the 2 hour lunch at rodisio grill, then we had desert, then I had a hot pepper, then I ate an entire bagguette. Then I went home after we hung out a little more and ate dinner and desert again. So when I went upstairs my stomach felt like it was gonna burst. So I was like, huh I should work this off, and for whatever reason I decided the best way to do that was a mile time trial.

I went to Brighton track and did a little under a mile warm up and some strethces and then just went at it. The wind was about 20 mph going against me on the backside of the track, so that was rough. I havn't raced in a long time.

I went out and it was feeling hard, I decided if what I was running didn't come in on pace I should probably just do repeats. It ended up being a 70 so that was good, but then I slowed and ran 80 and 80 for the 2nd and 3rd laps, I let the wind hold me back the last lap and then kicked for any chance I'd have but I finished in 5:04.

So not a perfect time trial, my throat is really bugging me now, bleeding and really irritated. I drank some Gatorade and that tasted like blood and my nose feels like death, so I need to lay off the gluten if I'm gonna start this again. Not perfect conditions for a fast time, but 5:04 isn't too bad, I bet next week I can run 4:50. But before then I have some workouts to do.I think I will try to do 2 more mile time trials in June.

After that I will do a pair of 5ks for the 4th and the 24th before the main race pen the summer.

Ran while my parents biked, they got a 20 second head start on the route cause my gps was starting. But I got to the top faster and had a big lead, they caught me going back down with a little under a mile left and probably got home about a minute before me. I averaged 6:20, my last full mile was 5:27 and I kept around 5:30 pace to finish. So next time I should go harder early on and try to bring that pace down to sub 6 if I want to get back home first!

I'm pretty happy about today's workout. I ran up to the rec center and did a bench workout with a warm up set of 10 at 155, 2x10 at 185, I did curls at 10x35 in between and then I decided to try for 205 even though my arms were a little sore after all that, I did 5 reps at 205, which I feel good about for my first set above 200. Next time I'll try for 6/7 reps or maybe just start fresh and go for all 10. I did pull ups, some abs, and back workouts too.

Then I ran the next 5 miles of my workout, I stopped with a quarter mile left to do monkey bars at the park, I did 40 monkey bars and then 20 of the monkey hoop things, the little hand holds you grab onto. So that was good. I finished with 30 burpees when I got home, not sure if I was just tired cause of the long workout or what but those burpees felt hard! I'm going to have to be careful not to mess up any of the obstacles at spartan. If I can pass all the obstacles I think top 3 is a possibility. If only fail one I think i could still make top 5ish, if I fail more than 2 I will be lucky to be top 10. But we'll see, I averaged 6:40 pace for today's run and it felt really good, body wasn't asking me to stop and I felt like it would have been comfortable to pick up the pace at any point.

So I'm getting in better shape, I'm feeling strong and fast and I've still got about 50 days until the race. I'm feeling good enough and confident enough today that I want to change my goal from top 10 to winning it.

Round 2 at the gym for back, pull ups, shoulders, and. Then another ab workout wit my brother afterwards.

Not the best day didn't really feel like doing much, I decided to get out and do a shorter workout early. So I ran to the gym, my upper body is really sore, but I did curls and pull up bar work out where I swung from pull up bar to pull up bar and around to the pull up handles and then finished with a pull up and hold, I did that a couple times. I also did curls and some abs. My arms were really sore, so I decided to just run back home. Averaged 6:30s for today's run so not bad. Tomorrow I'm deciding between a track workout and a mountain run up bells canyon. Will also get back on the bench and back workouts tomorrow.

Will play tennis tonight and maybe go for another short run then.

Body was calling for a total rest day, even though yesterday wasn't that hard. I just played tennis with my brother. So tomorrow I will do a pretty intense workout, that's all that's on my agenda. I will start work next week, but fortunately I'm gonna work at a gym so that will be nice.

Started a track workout at the Brighton track, started great with a 1200m in 3:45 in 95 degree weather that gave me loads of confidence I can break 5 now, then I did 800m recovery and was about to do 4 max effort 400m but I was starting to cough up my lungs again, just like last week when I ran the mile here. It was bad enough I went and found a little shade to try and let it pass but it kept up so I just left and went to the gym. Man not sure what's up, I think its just that track. Won't go back, I'll try doing a speed workout on the roads or at the Alta track and see how that goes. Maybe the suu track. Dang that's annoying to have what was going to be a 7/8 mile say that started out great stopped short. Will let my lungs recover for a couple hours and try to run while my parents bike tonight. Tomorrow will probably go up bells.

Went easy at the gym, just an easy set of bench, curls, and some pull ups and stuff. Then I hot rubbed because my shoulders still felt a little destroyed.

After letting my lungs recover for a few hours I ran while my dad biked up to the mouth of the canyon and back, we took a different route back home this time. I always get to the mouth first but I have yet to beat him home, last time was closer than today though. I averaged 6:30, not bad I guess because my lungs are still recovering. I was having an allergic reaction after my run on my neck and shoulders/chest, not sure if its related to my throat problems at the Brighton track or maybe i ate something I'm allergic to. Not going back to Brighton for a while though.

Ran to the gym and did a workout. Shoulders are hurting a little still. Geez my body is being lame this week. I just did 2x10 for 155 on bench and a set of 10x35 curls and 10x40 lawnmowers and then a bunch of back and ab workouts and pull up grip stuff as well, need to find my gloves. I'll do more abs and maybe more running tonight. I might take Saturday or Sunday off cause my lungs are still giving me a hard time from yesterday and my shoulders are hurting a little, but I went easy today and hopefully they will be better tomorrow. I'll do burpees and push ups tonight too.

Ran to the tennis court to play with my brother, did some sprints as well.

Started the day off with some rock salt bag carries, I carried two about 100m up a hill but one of them started sliding and then the handles broke and it was a mess. So instead I just carried one of them for half a mile. The last 200m i alternated between holding it over my head and hugging it. Pretty good workout, life would be harder as a fat person. Although their weight is distributed so it's not really the same or else they'd be ripped.

Then I went and played tennis with brother and did a bunch of monkey bar workouts arte, really need to find my gloves. I used other gloves today but they just aren't that good. Finished with a run.

Up a good 5 miles from last weeks mileage, steady but slow increases will lead me to success here. Next week might be big though, I'm running with taste Monday morning before he goes off to worlds and then Tuesday I will do a 7/8 miles (possibly a 10 miler with the guys in cedar) so yeah even if I only do like 5 tomorrow I might be at 25 miles after Tuesday. If that happens Wednesday will be rest or 4 miles at most. But next week could easily be a 40+ mile week, easily could get close to 50. Which would be awesome as long as I don't overdo it. I'll be careful though, I would probably go 4, 7, 4, 7-10 to finish out the week, so maybe a 47-50 mile week. I'm ordering a spear to train with for spartan and really just gonna give it 100% and hope that's enough for top 10 next month. (But really top 5 or 3)

Ran up the mouth of the canyons while my dad biked. It was fun, didn't feel too fast. Did some core on the pull up bar at the park on the way home. Tomorrow is gonna hurt but I'm gonna keep up with Tayte!!

Great run with Tayte today. I actually felt really good for my first real long run, especially since we did 2k elevation gain going up little cottonwood. It was fun to catch up!

The last mile going up got pretty hard. And that same mile was pretty hard to keep with Tayte going back down cause man he's fast and incredible at the technical areas, they literally do not slow him down haha. But I did well and it was really fun! We did some core in the middle school field next to his house on the way back, I was already pretty beat so that was really good. Also really glad we got the run in at the perfect point in the day when it wasn't storming.

Now to drive down to cedar city and get my stuff from Wendas vacant apartment and move it to the apartment I was gonna live in. Wow its just started coming down really hard, looks like large hail too! So glad we went running earlier!

Yesterday was really long, after training with tayte I drove to cedar, moved in my new apartment, saw some friends and teammates and then decided to drive home and got back way too late. Today I might just rest.

No mileage today but a good day of bench, curls, rows, pull ups, back, and other stuff.

Averaged 6:32 for 6.3 miles in the high 80s/low 90s, it felt easy do it was a pretty good day. Oh and I threw in a couple quarter mile pick ups in the middle. I started with an easy uphill mile in 7:27 and accelerated to finish in a 5:39. I also stopped after 5 miles to do a good workout at the gym, I did military press, overhead press, curls, rows, a few other back workouts, and the rowing machine. Can't remember if I did anything else. But yeah it was a good workout and I felt fast today, gym felt good and I got to a lot of muscle groups. Tomorrow will be back at bench, kind of excited. I'm going to do a lot with bench. I'm excited to see where I will be at the end of July.

Ran to the rec center as a warm up and did a lot of sets of bench, free bench, squats, curls, rows farmer carry with 2 45 plates, abs, back machine, rowing machine, pull ups, more abs, who knows if missing something. Anyways then I ran down to the park and did 20 monkey bars forwards and 20 monkey bars backwards, then 10 monkey handles forward and 10 backward. Then I ran 3/4 more miles in the heat and was dead. Full workout was 2 hours, I went easier on the running and averaged 7:15 today. Still was really dead by the end there. I'm getting a healthy change up of doing the bulk of my running done before and after my lifting. It's definitely more tiring after you've already been working out for over an hour.

Evening- did push ups, abs, and tennis with my brother. Then carried a rock salt bag for over half a mile and did burpees and Wenda burpees. This weekend's sub 17:00 attempt is a little ambitious, especially because its supposed to have a decent amount of uphill and I haven't don't that much speed and haven't raced in 7 months. It will be good to ease back into things, sub 17 feels like a really good goal for this one. It feels really good having gotten all the stuff I wanted to do today finished, it was a large list! These days where I spend 3-4 hours working out give me confidence I can beat or at least with the pros at Spartan. My hands keep getting best up from all the pull ups and weights, I have gloves now but they're still being beat up. Tomorrow will be a fairly easy day where I will spend more time concentrating on gre prep and do a practice test.

3 easy prerace miles with Jake. Its been good to catch up my best friend! SUU certainly seems more empty heading into this year without him. But if I'm lucky it could be my best year yet!

One should never concentrate so much on hypothetical future events or unreachable past events that they lose sight of the present and enjoying what they have. That's some thing I need to work on, I'm always very concetrated on the future trying to achieve a specific outcome or situation I have in mind, but in reality I'm a very small piece in a giant universe and no matter what I do, things will take their course and I can't predict or even full prepare 100% for the future, and I certainly can't control it. When I look back at this last year, it was such an amazing experience with Jake and Wenda in the fall and Wenda in the spring, it was the perfect situation. Yet at the time, in the fall I was too concentrated on something I never should have let bother me, and in the spring I was too concentrated with the future of how things were going to go. I was happy but I should have spent less time worrying and thinking about things I couldn't do much about. Now it's summer, and I'm concentrating way too much on the fall and what's going to happen then. But I'm taking for granted that I get to live and spend time with my parents and my brother and his family, I can spend 4 hours a day working out and goof off a ton of the time. In 50 years I'll look back at this summer and regret not spending every possible second with my family making more memories and becoming closer to them. I need to concentrate on the people I'm with and on the present, some day I will wish I could be here again!

So the course we raced today was not conducive to a sub 17:00 attempt, apparently what used to be one of the fastest courses in Utah got turned into one of the slowest this year. They started us up a giant hill for the first mile which resulted in no one breaking 6 the first mile and being gassed for the 2nd. I took 3rd behind Jake and Ben Vanbeekum, i beat Christian Corver who is a fast guy from my graduating year who's on the byu practice squad so that was really good. And considering Jake and Ben ran 15:20 last year on what this course was supposed to be and ran 17:20 and 17:45 this year I'd say my low 18:10 wasn't too bad. I think in a flat 5k I probably could have made sub 17 considering those guys ran a full 2 mins slower on this course. And I mixed it up with some really fast guys so I'm feeling pretty good about the race despite the slow time. Not much you can do when you've got a course like that,but yeah i had a lot of fun, it took me until about half way through the race to get my legs back under me after that huge hill.

Ran to the mouth of the canyon with my dad while he biked and then back down. I ran 5:31 for mile 4 and I felt great, last quarter of mile 4 was downhill so that helps.

I stopped at the park to and did 20 monkey going forward and 20 the other way. Then I did 10 monkey handles forward and back, on the exchange from one side to the other I banged my knee on a pillar pretty hard, I finished the 10 back and then walked over bad sat a table in the park for a few minutes while I let my knee recover and examined it. It seemed fine, just kind of a hard hit. So I got back up and did 10 pull ups and a few side wide pull ups with some side lifts for the obliques. Then I ran home and my knee was hurting so I went slow and eventually just walked in the last bit. I averaged under 6:20 for the run so good workout.

Will do abs later, hopefully my leg is all healed up by tomorrow, if not I will hot tub and swim, maybe bike. And tomorrow will be a huge upper body day. I'm excited.

Ran to the park and did monkey bars and then to the gym and did a very intense workout, spent an hour and a half working out there. 3 sets of 10 of Bench, curls, rows, pull ups, 3x500m rowing, pull downs, 40 leg lifts, pull up side lifts, 40 inverted crunches, wide grip pull ups, 3 minutes of farmer carry with 2 45s at max incline on tread mill, I did an oblique machine. Who knows if I'm missing something. Oh yeah I did 3 sets of squats with 135 and 155, those was pretty easy but I wanted to be careful with the knee. Man that was a long work out, after that i ran the 5k course and 2 more miles home with burpees to finish. So getting in 5 miles at a decent pace that I wasn't pushing at all after a huge workout was good.

Later I will hopefully do abs with my brother, push ups and a rock salt carry. My hands are still really beat up so that's frustrating.

33 days until Spartan. This weekend I'm coming up with a custom made race to simulate what Spartan will be like.

Later- Felt like I had some more in the tank so I went back to the gym with my dad and I did 3x10 of squats at 185, 205, and 225. Those all felt good, not too hard. Legs are feeling powerful, I want to 3x10 at 305 to be comfortable by the Spartan race, then the 400 pound tire flip will be nothing, I'm really not sure how hard its gonna be, but you only have to lift half of it up so.. Can't be that bad. Guess we'll see. Really wish I could find one to practice with. Then I did 2x10 dumbbell bench press with 50 pounds each. After that I did the oblique machine for 2 sets each side and another leg raise ab workout. Then I did some more pull ups and stuff with that. I tried doing a pull up with 45 pound dumbell between my feet and that was hard, I got all the way up but my hip started spasming so I dropped it and went and finished with some more rowing. This week my goal for running is to run over 40 miles, if I run all 7 days then over 45. Tomorrow I will make it up to Alta to run with the team and that will help with mileage. Strength workout wise I will continue just going by feel, it's working out pretty well so far. Tomorrow will be an easier day for strength training though.

Ran with the Alta cross country team making it 7 consequetive summers I've run up at Albion basin! I'll have to come again in a couple weeks when the road isn't blocked off. I ran with Tavin and Aj, Aj and I did 3 laps at the campgrounds, but on the 3rd some construction people had blocked off the bridge with trees they'd been chainsawing down. So I thought it best to turn back and call it a day. Had a nice finish to the run, and its always a great feeling to have chocolate milk at the end of an Alta run.

Then I went to be gym and ran another mile and a half with pull ups throughout, I did 5 pull ups holding 25 pounds between my feet and that felt pretty good. I'm really sore from yesterday though. I think the rest of today I will just rest, maybe set up the training spear for spartan, and then tomorrow will be another huge day. Looking forward to it, hopefully my muscles will be ready. I'm starting to feel my aerobic base coming back finally and that's a very good sign.

Wasn't feeling great today so I just ran up to the gym and did bench at 165 and 175 for 4 sets, curls at 35 and 40 for 3 sets, skipped squats, did a few pull ups with 35 pounds in between my feet, did wide grip pull ups. Oblique machine for 3 sets, abs. I did 3x10 dumbell row with 50. I did pull down machine and rowing machine 3 x10 at 100, 115, and 130. I did dumb bell bench for a set with two 55s. I did 3 shoulder workout lifts cause it would be good to get my shoulders stronger. I think that was about it before I ran back home. So nothing crazy today, we'll see how tomorrow is.

Realized I hadn't taken a day off where I didn't work out for at least an hour in weeks, and that along with feeling like crap the past two days led to me taking today off. Tomorrow will be a big mileage, big workout, big meals day and I'm excited for it.

Ran to the gym, I do obliques and abs and then pull downs, curls, dumbell rows, dumbell bench, 3 different shoulder lifts, squats 3x10 at 225, 245, and 265. 265 felt like a lot of weight on my back, my legs and butt felt a burn but they could have handled more. I'll have to see how much they can handle. I think I can do 305 but we'll see, I want to be careful. Then I did some more abs and finally got my turn on the bench and did 3x10 at 165 and 175 with more rows in between, my arms were pretty tired at that point. Then I did 10 wide grip pull ups, 10 pull ups, and 1000m of rowing. Then I ran around the long way home and stopped by the park and did monkey handles and monkey bars. My arms were fairly dead. I sprinted down the hill home and then ran a little more to cool down. I should run more today but I'm just not feeling it and I had been working out for 2 and half hours and needed to eat. Now that I've eaten I'm still not really feeling mileage, maybe a track workout but the track has been screwing with my lungs. I'll see if my brother will go with me and give the Brighton track a 3rd and final chance.

Had that surge of motivation to go break 5 and went to the track with Adam, I was gonna do a work out of 1600, 800, 400. I ran a 70 for the first lap of the mile, then I followed with a 78, then a 76, and finally a 74 for a total time of 4:58. I'd say it was like a 90-95% effort on the mile. I definitely could have gone harder the last 3 laps, my lungs felt a off but not nearly as bad as the last two times, still to be safe I just finished with a 400m in 60 seconds. Lungs feel kind of crappy but I'm not coughing at all so that's good news, I can probably train at the Brighton track. Ended up being quite the good day for training. Tomorrow will be really good too. This won't be my last mile time trial of the summer, I want to run under 4:45 during July.

2000 feet elevation gain going up a trail in Milcreek. It pretty steep and very technical, especially once I got above the treeline, it was terrible, there were really thick bushes and the trail was so overgrown you can't see where you're putting your feet and there are rocks and roots all over, there are places where there are no footplacements. So after getting tripped up and stubbing my toes into rocks and roots I couldn't see for a mile or two I decided to call it a day. Solid run though, good training. This will help a lot for the skyline half and Spartan. Which is 4 weeks away!

I don't know if I'll have time to go lift tonight. I will do core for sure though, and tomorrow I will have a great lifting day.