Blake Bennions running

Frustrating today. Started my run too late and ended up in the dark on busy roads for the marathon pace miles and kind of tanked them.

Ran in pleasent view and parked my car with Gus and water at shady lane park. I took gu at 40 and 80 minutes and I wish I had taken some around mile 17 as well because I was feeling on top of the world at mile 16 and drained at mile 19. Good news is that I like gu a lot and if anything I think it prevented GI issues.

After a mile warm up I did a mile steady, then 2 mile uphill at marathon pace, then 10 more steady, then 5 that were supposed to be marathon pace but kinda dropped between that and steady. It's harder to run fast and stay on pace when it's dark, especially with all the cars driving by so my eyes never adjusted. Oh well. I was going to do 6 and ended up doing 5 in 5:40, 5:37, 5:54, 6:09, 6:10. I'd be concerned about my fitness except my heart rate never rose above mid 160s for that entire 5 mile mp effort. I think I was just drained and the poor visibility was screwing with me.

Turned the last mile into a cool down and then cooled down another mile at home.

20 min sauna.

Next week I'm going to do a workout I saw cam levins do recently. 10x2k with 1k recovery at steady pace. I'll do 5:40-5:45 on the ons and 6:20-6:30 on the offs, maybe a little faster on tbr last two reps if I'm feeling good. I think that will have be a huge confidence builder if I can do that. I'm also going to stop going to pleasant view for these and just use my neighborhood.

20 minute sauna. Legs feeling pretty good today. Sauna plus leg recovery system massage post run is a great combo.

Easy in the rain. Actually didn't mind the rain today.

Not well planned or executed, but confidence building. To be fair the goal today was just to get a feel for pace and what I could handle on flat selections of Ogden half marathon.

Ran 3x2 miles at goal half marathon pace. Went out top hot and had to reel it back in. Fortunately I'd planned to give myself like 4-5 mins rest between reps and that turned into a mile easy. Goal today was just to get the legs moving faster and see what sub 70 half pace would feel like.

Splits were

5:10, 5:22

5:24, 5:23

5:22, 5:19

Low 5:20s on the roads felt pretty sustainable. Definitely had to throw in some surges now and then to keep the pace from dropping to where I'm more comfortable around 5:40, but I wasn't suffering on the last 2 reps. I think my actual half marathon pace rn is probably closer to 5:30, hopefully a little under that. But with Ogdens course being net 600 foot drop I think sub 70 is possible in May.

My main takeaway from today is that 5:24 pace on a flat hm course would be doable with a little work.

Salt lake Marathon declined my elite application which is fair considering I've never run a marathon and I ran a 77 in my only road half. But between that and some friends signing up for the Ogden half recently I'm tempted to go back to my original plan of sub 70 at ogden half and then sub 2:30 at Des news marathon. I think I might make my goal at Des news a little more aggressive, like 2:27.

I also feel my salt lake training plan has been a little rushed. I'm trying to squeeze in a lot of high intensity and high volume into a short window and between taper and recovery running SLC would take out like 5-6 weeks of quality training.. . Would be frustrating if I end up missing my goal and lowering my potential for Des news. It would probably be smarter to give myself time for plenty of good quality targeted weeks... but I also think I really could hold 5:40s pace for a marathon and it's only 2 months away And there's no guarantee I'm in this shape again next year... Hard to decide but I'm leaning towards skipping salt lake.

Low on time today. Legs felt tired and sore.

Easy with Kolten and Jake. Felt good today, legs are sore but not feeling bad.

I think I'm going to adjust my training plan to long runs of 16-20 miles with a 20+ mile day once or twice per month instead of trying to hit 4-5 22-24 mile runs before I would start tapering in April. I think skipping salt lake and going for Des news gives me the best chance at healthy successful year of running.

Easy with Jake. I have decided to let my legs get back to 100% before doing any long runs or speed work beyond strides. My legs even felt sore or at least never felt 100% even at the end of my recovery week, and with targeting a marathon 5 months out, a half marathon in May and a trail race 4 weeks from now there's no reason to be pushing the edge of over training. Legs felt good today, I think they'll be 100% by Tuesday/Wednesday. I've been wanting to do a fast mile repeats workout on for a long time now.

25 min sauna with a minute break after the first 15. Felt hot today.