Blake Bennions running

Nice run with the team at liberty park, the leaves were really awesome today! Now I have to do campaign service stuff. Highest mileage I've ever done, I could 70 with a 4 mile run tonight! My body is tired and I'm super busy today but if I get home early enough tonight I might go on one.

Am- 6 miles

Pm- 3.75 miles and then 8xhill sprints. I estimated the hill to be 150m long and I ran up and down each time so 300x8 is 2400m or 1.5 miles so 5.25 miles overall.

Easy day, signal for a hard day on the track. Hopefully we do a max effort 800m first, its getting embarrasing having to tell colleges my sophomore time that I ran 30 minutes after a 1600m. I can't wait for track, I want to skip my week-2 week break because I want to run track so bad, but I know my body does better if I give it rest before a season. Then I will be back to the 1600m, my body was made to run the 1600m and I love the race, almost nothing in life is better than a good and competitive 1600m. It just feels right when i'm racing the 1600m. hopefully USU calls soon, I really want to get in touch about running there in college, it feel like the right place but we will see. 

Good fast track workout today. We ran a max effort 800m and 3x300 at 40-43 seconds. For the 800m I managed to PR by 2 seconds after a slow first lap, I wasn't sure what pace I was running the first 400m but it was too easy, I ran 64 and so I had to pick it up the 2nd lap, I ran a 62 second 2nd lap but I even kicked conservatively because I forgot if I usually kicked at the 300m or 200m of an 800m, I ran a 62 second 2nd lap for a 2:06 800m. I was feeling fine at the end though, I didn't go hard enough in the first 600m. But I had fun and it made me a lot more motivated for running in general to run a fun track race. I should've taken the first Lap in 59 or so and then tried to hang on to a 62-64 for the 2nd lap. But its ok, I had fun and I'm really confident that I can run sub 2:00 this spring, I'm also feeling confident on running that first lap pace for 4 laps this spring, I'm feeling really good about ability. This is definitely what I needed to keep it going hard the rest of the season. I think i might do my morning run at home tomorrow for extra sleep and also the warm shower makes my day a lot better than the cold ones at school. Thank you for having us do this workout Coach!

Am- 5 miles easy. I felt good but I was tired.

Pm- 9 in the gully.

I was going to do 20-30 minutes but everyone just stopped at 15 and we did some striders. Tomorrow I want to run under 16:30, I want to finish in the top 30.

Bad race, I just didn't do very well for some unknown reason, my 2nd mile was really slow. I also left my  watch there so that sucks. I really don't want to drive all the way back, especially because I might not even find it.

Good day, I got some good things done. I ran the best buy loop backwards, I really liked it! It went by pretty fast too, maybe not going to Nike SW because less teams will be accepted this year, I don't think I will go if we don't get in the championship, lots of time and money for an open race.

Pre-race! I get to race the 1600m tomorrow!!! And I'm going for a personal record, I want to run sub 4:30 but I believe I can do more than that! It's going to be so much fun!

Bad race, very cold. 30 minute cool down in which I started feeling really weird and my asthma is really bothering me, especially right now. Sometimes I wonder if my medicine is a placebo.

8 easy with the team, we did it in an hour.

Gully long run hard after the first mile, Tayte and I broke off from the team after a mile or so and started going fast, the rest of the team picked it up later. I was hurting a little on dimpledell road on shut up hill but mostly I wast feeling good and strong and we were running at a hard pace. Ashton twisted his ankle so he will be recovering from that this weekend, we stopped to make sure he was ok for a couple minutes and he got up and did some more miles. But even with the stop and the slow first mile or so, Tayte and I ran 45:00 so it was a really good effort. Probably sub 40:00 pace for the hard miles and I was feeling good.

3 mile warm up and the 5x800m in the snow at cottonwood complex. I ran 2:33, 2:32, 2:30, twisted my ankle on the 4th and ran 2:35, and held on for a 2:32 on the 5th. Then I did a mile cool down. Good workout, I had fun! Nike is annoying, judging by last year they won't be telling us if we made it or not until the day before we leave... Oh well. If we don't make it I'm just going to do a 3 mile time trial on the track to reach my goal. Or maybe a 5k and just look at what I come across the 3 mile at as well. Either way, I'm not going to let these past years of high school cross country end without something huge, like a sub 16:00 3 mile.

7 miles on porter Rockwell. 4 easy, 2 hard, 1 easy. Good run, but my body still hasn't adjusted to the cold weather. Feeling a little sick but I'm taking care of it and will be feeling good by Nike.

Warmed up and did 4x400m at max effort with 7 minutes rest. Kind of slowish times but it was fun and felt good, I ran 58, 59, 60, 59. Both of the 59s were run with an untied shoe. So not bad, and what's most important is that I was feeling strong during them. Probably could have run a little faster the first 200m of the first 3, the last one I had a pretty good first half but my shoe came untied haha, still a decent 400m and cubby did really well on the last 400m and made a PR! Tomorrow is my last practice of high school cross country, today was my last speed workout. I need to make this last race count, it needs to be great. I'm going to research new mental strategies for dealing with more pain throughout the race, I need to find ways to push my limits a lot harder. My 1600m time says I have potential, I need to do my best to discover that potential for cross country. I've heard a lot of negative things about having potential recently, like that having potential just means your not good at something or haven't worked for it, but I don't think it's a negative thing. Sometimes it's hard or just takes time to reach your potential, that's why people train so many years for things. They have lots of potential when they're freshman and 10 years later they might be at their full potential, and its not bad that they have a lot of potential as a freshman, its good. I think I should be running faster in the 5k and if I can find a way to run faster by being more mentally tough and motivated during race, I need to find the way.

7 miles in the gully easy, with one small hard section, a little longer than a strider. I felt pretty good today, tomorrow won't be an incredibly awesome day, maybe getting one of those medicines that stop car sickness will help. Friday will be a lot of fun though! Saturday is the race!

Did pretty good, felt like I was running with a lot of fast guys all race! More later. Had fun! It's amazing how many guys pass through in 20 seconds. I was right, the last guy who ran under 16:00 took 75th place. I was only 20 seconds behind and took 130th. High school cross country is finished, my next crosscountry race will be in almost 3 years, and hopefully for a division 1 school. I finally ran a sub 16:00 3 mile, only the race was over 3 miles. I also ran a faster pace for this race than any other so far so good stuff! I was way up there the first half of the race but I was worried about how fast I was going and I started doing worse, 2nd mile was bad but I finished ok. No cool down unfortunately. Alta didnt place so well, 22nd out of 30 teams. Time to try to win the cottonwood heights 5k and then take my break, I'm going to be so motivated for track! This is my time, I want that 4:18 so much!

Some easy miles, I felt good, it was effortless. I did a short bike workout yesterday, I think doing more could increase the tempo of my pace, which would help things a lot. Another 2-4 miles Wednesday and then the Cottonwood Heights Thanksgiving 5k on Thursday, I want to win it this year. Then I will take off a week and a half to two weeks.