Blake Bennions running

Great run today :)! Ran up bells canyon with tayte and Jake, so much fun! Tayte is off to France and Italy for the next month now but its been great training with him. Julian also joined us for a little ways. Good day of training preparing for Jupiter peak. I was so tired today from getting about 4 hours of sleep per day since Thursday I decided to call out of my other job. Hopefully another mountain run tomorrow!

Told myself if I ran sub 16 for a 3 mile tempo that I could call it a day and just cool down back home. I ran 15:46! I opened in 2 5:18 miles and then kind of had dynamic pacing between 5:02 and 5:15 for a 5:10 mile to finish it off. So an average of 5:16 for 3. That was really good, I may do one more of these before going back to cedar and if I did I would go for 3 5:10s and maybe try and pick it up to 5:00 for the last mile. We shall see. But yeah very good effort, I'm in decent shape. Aerobic capacity could certainly be improved. But I'm finally back in good enough shape I know I can finish the progression run and make camp. I'm pumped for this year. Jupiter peak is an incredibly good aerobic builder for me, so even if I don't do crazy good that is a run that builds me up so much as a runner. So this will be a great week, then next week I might do a mock progression and might do another tempo at sub 15:30. And then after that week it will mostly just be good long runs with maybe some fast miles thrown in to prepare for going back to suu. Then I'm at suu and have the progression run and camp, and then things start really flying at me. So need to start preparing more for school too.

Good run with Alta today, always good to see coach Murphy. 6th summer of at least one Alta run with the Alta cross country team, wouldn't be a complete summer of training without it! I ran mostly with Ian, I think they're going to have a solid team this year! 7:30 average on the way up which is great. Good last challenging run before Jupiter peak, tomorrow will be an easy 8-10 probably up to Brighton tracks. And then Friday will be very easy low mileage, I need all the rest I can get leading up to first run of this distance in a long time. I could easily see myself blowing up during the race and not finishing very quickly at all but if things go smoothly and my body makes the jump like I'm hoping then I think I could pull off a time in the mid, maybe even low 1:50s. This race I'm hoping will help me jump back into the long run passion I had before my mission that has evaded me since. If I can average 8:30-8:45 going up and 5:30-5:45 going down I can run 1:52-1:56. I think that's a reasonable goal. But like I said I might not be ready for that, and that would be ok too. But I feel like this week especially my body is finally working like I want it to. Which is odd because I've been on an awful sleep schedule due to graves, I need to be strong and not take naps so that I will be able to fall asleep tonight before 5.

Couldn't run more today I had to go to work after I woke up and then when I got home my brothers wanted to play a game so I said running would only take 30 minutes, so I left and did the rec center Brighton loop, took me under 23 minutes!! That's well under 6 minute pace for 4.2 miles with over 350 ft elevation gain so not bad. I tried it with my trail shoes with inserts and I honestly didn't try to go fast at all I just let my body go at a pace that it wanted to and it wanted to go a little faster, but I felt like a had way more and it felt easy. So not exactly the day I had planned but it's fine, probably will give me a little extra going into the race to have 2 low mileage days anyways. Just however much I'm feeling tomorrow probably 2-4 but mostly just rest so day before the big mileage race.

Tested out different shoes

Ankle was not ready, body in general wasn't ready either I don't think. My ankle started having problems after 7ish miles and after that it was pretty much over. I kept having to stop and let it calm down for a minute pretty much ever mile and I couldn't run too fast wherever there were rocks or it would start acting up bad (there are rocks everywhere) so yeah didn't go exactly as I'd hoped. But it was a really beautiful run and I enjoyed it, and a great mileage day with a run that will pay off big later. I started out in the top group of 4 and the first giant hill was rough so after that I let them get away a bit. One of them dropped off and I passed him. I sat in 3rd for a few miles and then a guy with an Indiana jersey passed me, it took him a few minutes cause I kept putting space between us on the flat sections and then he would make it up on the others. I stayed within sight of him until the summit but 2 more guys caught up and I kind of ran with them from 4th-6th until my ankle started hurting about half a mile from the summit. After that I had to let them go and then 2 or 3 other guys passes me before I got to the top. Before the ankle thing I was hoping to use the downhill to catch back up to 3rd and do whatever I could to close the gap on 2nd and 1st and even after it was hurting I was hoping the way back would be nice and smooth so I could fly without worrying about the ankle as much. It wasn't, at all, it was pretty bad and like I said I had to stop like once per mile to give my ankle a break and I couldn't really go too fast so I got passed by a like 4 more people before the end. I talked with a guy who ran at Stanford until last year for a few miles coming down cause his ankle was also not doing well, I think he dropped out though. So yeah not a very good race but an awesome run.

Pros: Got a good mileage day in

Ankle will probably be fine, I think I managed the injury pretty well.

Still finished the race instead of having to wait at an aid station or something.

Cons: Did pretty bad

Ankle still not healed

So not a bad day, one thing I don't like about this race is that the start/parking area is like a mile away from the finish.

Additional note: I've always wondered why they give out coke at aid stations so the last 2 aid stations, since I wasn't really running for place or time anymore, I decided to give it a try.. And I threw up.. Both times. I don't know who can drink coke on race haha. On the other hand I don't know why I got it a 2nd time after it went so poorly the 1st, I guess it just tasted good. Also got 2 hours of sleep last night after laying in bed awake for many hours. I'm going to fight taking a nap before bed because I need to discipline my body and train it to sleep earlier.