Blake Bennions running

When I woke up this morning my ankle was probably feeling worse than it had yesterday, but after another 12 hours of rest and ice and a 2 hour nap I was feeling an incredible amount better. This is a miracle, I think it may have just been tight from sleeping in the morning but it didn't even hurt to walk by the time I went to the rec center, so I ran 20 meters and that felt fine, there was a little pop but it was a good feeling pop. The workout on the bike today was one of the hardest I've done 5 min warm up and then 55 mins of 2 mind hard, 3 mind easy. My shirt felt like I had jumped in a lake by the end. I did 8 minutes of cooling down at the end. My ankle is still swollen probably as much as this morning, I think the biking may have gotten it a little more swollen again, but everything feels like a minor injury. I bet I could run the workout tomorrow if I had to! I am hoping to maybe get out on the track tomorrow for 4 easy miles or something, the doctors appointment is at 3 so if they clear it I will go! My ankle feels awesome! It's really swollen but compared to this morning it's really incredible! I'm very excited about this and I feel like I dodged a bullet, I was really worried this would destroy all my build up for the season but I'm really excited about how good its feeling!

Sports med. doctor said 4-5 miles tonight, 7 miles tomorrow, and Thursday I could do 10 if the next two runs are ok. Also I can't run downhills for a while so unfortunately Alta tomorrow isn't a good idea. Thursday I will come and run at practice, hopefully do the workout, but maybe just a long run, I will see how I'm feeling and talk to Coach Murphy. The Achilles and sprain are healed, but there's a very loose ligament, my left foot can be pulled to the side about 3-4 times as far as the right. So more icing and then when it clears up tonight I will do 4-5 miles and a 20-30 minute bike ride. I am thinking 5 min warm up, 20 mins of 2:30 hard, 2:30 easy, 5 minute cooldown.

4 miles at the Brighton track, just had dinner before so not the most enjoyable but my ankle felt fine! Time for the biking part.

7 miles with Matt around Brighton. My ankle is still swollen but its feeling good. The ligament is still loose but feeling better after the run. I will bike 30 minutes tonight, probably just a hard pace. This week has been ok training, tomorrow I will return to practice and do 10 miles if Coach Murphy is ok with that. I might go at 7:30 and do 4 miles and then run with the team, I'm not sure if I should do the workout tomorrow. But I think next week I will be able to do all the workouts without trouble, my plan for the rest of the week is 10 miles tomorrow, 12-14 miles at Libert Park on Friday, 11-12 miles on Porter Rockwell trail on Saturday. So I will get about 45-48 miles for the week, plus 1 really hard biking workouts, and 2 decently hard biking workouts. I say this is an ok week of training, its definitely made this season even more valuable, I was blessed to not have been more injured by that fall. I had 3 different ankle injuries but they all turned out to be ok, I could have been out for 2 weeks which would have really damaged my season. But this has given me even more reason to make this season count!

It's great to be back, we ran a warm up and then 10 miles over to Porter Rockwell and back, the pace we needed to hit was 7:00 and when we got to 5 we were a minute or two slow so Cubby, Ashton, and I picked it up on the way back. We had fun pushing it on the hill, its nice having Cubby back! We picked it up to make up for the time we had lost but we were talking the entire time so it wasn't too hard, it was a decent pace. Friday will be a long run at liberty park and Saturday will be a team practice at Sugar House. My ankle is almost all better, still a little pain but never while running. I think our team will be good this year, Highland is going to be amazing, only 2 weeks away!

9.5 around liberty park with Matt. Kind of tired today. I will do another 3 miles tonight. Pretty good run.

3.2 at a park near my house at 9:00. I felt great, perfect temperature. I ran the opposite way I usually do around the park for the final 3 laps, it was really weird but also fun! Good run.

60 minutes of running at sugar house today, about 4 laps and the state course. Then we did 8 hills. It was a power workout, the first one or two I was just using my legs but after that I started attacking the hill and going a lot faster. Davis and I were the only ones that showed up today. After practice, Coach Murphy took us to Dunkin Doughnuts, thanks Coach! Sounds like there are some really crazy mountain runners out there, someday in like 7 or 8 years I want to race with that Jornet guy, I'm sure he will win by a ton but it would be cool to race him!