Blake Bennions running

Easy run with the team, and some tough core afterward. I liked it a lot! We also did lunges as well. it was a good practice, I am pretty sure I will be sore tomorrow. I neglected doing lunges last week, I completely forgot. I did some the first week of break though. I was also really happy about how easy the run was for me, and I am in pretty good shape for my core as well. I am debating over going to the USU meet this weekend by myself or not. I am excited, school seems so clear after that break. Well precalculas will never be clear, but I kind of got what my teacher was saying today.

Easy run at the oval today. It felt good, I felt really good when I got to pick it up a little for a few laps with some guys. I really want to do some fast speed workouts, but I guess I must be patient. Coach Murphy encouraged me to embrace the 3200m event more, so I am going to do my best to succeed in that event as well as the 1600 and 800. I have had some tendinitis since last week, but its going away, it was bad yesterday but it felt better today. We did drills and squats after the run, they felt really good too. I have passion again, its really good to have back, I have missed it. I can not wait to race, no matter the distance, I want to have another shot at all those guys who have been beating me.

It was a good day, and interesting, kind of weird though. I talked to a few teacher today and they gave me some good insight and advice. And my coach talked to me about training and gave me really good advice as well. I need to trust my coach and my training, and believe that the workouts I do will make me a faster runner. I have been neglecting the confidence I should be getting from my workouts, I will try to think about what each workout will do for my improvement during the workout. I think it will help me push myself. I think what Coach was teaching us today really makes sense, different people react to different training. I really appreciate that my Coach tries to do a lot of both speed work and mileage. I think I will be doing a few runs on my own after practice each week, maybe just a couple miles. For practice today, I did a 10 minute warm up jog with Ashton, and then another 10 minute warm up jog with all of the team. Then we did mini-hurdles and core, and watched a video about a really good runner, I liked the video. The guy was an awesome runner! I am trying to get my schedule for the 2nd semester changed, its an interesting process. I am trying to decide between a few options, I would have to really change my schedule to get phsycology but I think it would be worth it. Thats a subject I have wanted to take for a while, but there are some other interesting classes I want to try out, I don't know if the Journalism teacher would mind my handwritting or not. I am not really interested in being a journalist at the moment, but why not take the class. Its been a good day.

Before practice, I did an easy 1.5 miles with Ashton and Jacob, I wanted to get a feel for what I would be running in. Then we warmed up with the team, I call that another mile and a quarter. I will have to ask to see if it is. After warming up, we did drills, they were kind of fun. The side lunges hurt on of the tendons or joints on the backside of my right knee, this has been a reaccuring problem since Freshman Track when we used to do stretches that were kind of like side lunges. But it will go away. The tendinitis in my ankle didn't hurt on the run today, maybe just because of the cold, but it has been feeling less sensitive. I don't mind injuries as long as I can still run. We did an 8 mile run, the best buy loop and then a loop that Coach showed us this week that is 1.5 miles. The last 3/4 miles were faster than the rest, but I felt good. I also ran through the school to get my backpack to make sure it was 8, it was probably a little more. It was another good day, I need to do a few things before the quarter ends but I think I will be ok. I also did 50 pushups at lunch because the national guard was there and they were giving out stuff for pushups so I got a shirt. Oh another thing, Berecruited called my parents and told them some things I should be doing to run in college, they said for the mile I need to run at least a 4:42, that should be no problem at all. And for the 3200 they said a 10:13 which I think is manageable. I can not wait to rip out some fast times this season!!!

We did the upper loop three times, Braydens garmin said that the lower loop was 1.9 miles so I put it as 5.7 all together. We did the lap easy, somewhere in the 7 minute range I think, the 2nd lap was a hard effort lap, I wasn't feeling great today but I felt like pushing myself. I took off from the group and ran at a good effort, I felt pretty good running upper 5 minute pace. I finished and jogged around just a bit before waiting for everyone else, Braydon finished about 20 seconds, no more than 30 seconds behind me I would say, and when he finished the time was 26:50 for the whole run, assuming the first lap took us about 15 mins, that means I ran on the faster half of 11 minutes, so 5:45 pace or so, maybe faster. I doubt the first lap only took us 15 minutes but I don't know. I have really enjoyed the hard efforts in the runs we have done the past 2 days. Tomorrow will be a long run that will probably push us over 50 miles for the week. I didn't ask Coach Murphy how long the run tomorrow will be, but he said long so probably 10+.

I drove to Highland High School to meet up with everyone for the run but when I got there I couldn't find anyone, I was about 10 mins late or so. But I saw a group of people, maybe 4 heading south of highland high on 1700 East when I was driving into the parking lot. I thought it might be Coach Murphy, Jake and others, so I tried to catch up but I lost them and then gave up after over a mile. I ran back to highland High and decided to just do a long run at sugarhouse park, so I ran to sugar house and did 5 and a half laps. I spent most of the run trying to pass all the runners I saw on the loop, I was going in the 6 minute range for most of the 5 and a half laps. I felt really good, but I was tired by the end of the run. It may have been more like 11 mile, but I just made a safe estimate of 10.5 because I'm pretty sure I did 3 miles or more before running at sugar house. I am looking forward to the next 50 hours of rest.