Blake Bennions running

December 27, 2025

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Member Since:

Jun 01, 2013

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Ran for Alta and SUU on their Cross Country/Track and Field teams

Short-Term Running Goals:

Stay healthy and and build mileage 🤕

sub 16:00 Founders Day 5k ✅

Win crossover half ✅

2000 miles during 2025

Top 3 at 2026 Des News Marathon

Long-Term Running Goals:

Keep running and run some solid PRs

Run the Boston Marathon at least once

Run the Broken Arrow series

Personal:

Married, we have one daughter so far. I ran for Alta high school and was trained by Rob Murphy, he is a great coach, one of the best there is. I also ran for Southern Utah University.

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 36.50 Month: 183.55 Year: 2007.50
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.000.000.000.000.00

No running, just lots of core. Still waiting for air quality to improve. I have a tendency to fixate on stuff like this. One of the perks of moving to Ohio for me was that the average AQI here is 24 and the average in Utah and Colorado is 30-33.

So unless you have a carbon filter air purifier the average pollution throughout the year is equivalent to smoking 3 cigarettes a week in Colorado/Utah vs 2 here in Ohio. One cigarette is equivalent to about 22 ug/m3 of p2.5 and am AQI is about 8 ug/m3 over 24 hours. AQI of 24 is about 5 ug/m3. That's still about 100 cigarettes in a year of damage to my lungs every year, which (along with risk of VOCs from our remodel) is why I bought the best heavy duty carbon filter air purifier so that I could reduce that to pretty much 0 at least when we're home. Don't want young Whitney to have any lung problems. My upgraded air purifier we got this spring is probably my most prized possession along with my adjustable dumbbells, those are amazing. With how much I've moved around the past few years I really don't have a lot of possessions I'm attatched to, but now I have this 50lb air purifier and 180lb for the two adjustable dumbbells that I will definitely take with me in any future move... I suppose lots of baby stuff too and thats before we get to Beccas stuff. Gone are the days everything I need in life easily fits in a sedan.

Anyways, I figure when you're doing an intense activity like running you're basically getting your full days worth of exposure to the bad air quality in about an hour (maybe that's extreme), which means that going on a run on a day like today where the AQI is over 100 would be the equivalent of smoking 2 cigarettes. Is a run as good for your lungs as 2 cigarettes are bad? Maybe I'll research that next, but I'm pretty sure that would be hard to compare. Its interesting to consider that even on an average air quality day, that line of thinking means that 30 miles of outdoor running would also come with negative pollution effects worth 2 cigerretes. I'm not sure why the EPA considers AQI of 50 perfectly safe... does that mean that smoking is perfectly fine as long as you limit yourself to under 200 cigerettes per year? At a certain point you just have to live your life and not worry about it, but it is a consideration for me.

I just hope the air quality improves quickly. Probably should have done a treadmill run today but my basement gets kind of stuffy if I don't open a window when I run...which would defeat the whole purpose of the treadmill.

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