Blake Bennions running

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.