Blake Bennions running

Am- 6.5 easy. It felt better than the morning runs last week but I was really tired for the first few hours of school, probably because I was having trouble sleeping last night. But I figured out a major stress producer I've had over the past couple of months, I was really worried about finding a academically good, cheap college at which I could still run distance. So I made a berecruited profile and I also realized once again that BYU hawaii is still a great option for me, I've been thinking about BYU hawaii as an option for a while but I sort of started thinking probably not because they only have a cross country program, no track. So no 800/1600 for me... but overall I like it a lot! And even though I wouldn't get to run track, maybe I could walk on to the soccer team there for spring competition and have fun with that, obviously I would still run a lot during soccer if played that during the spring. BYUH is definitely an option I will consider when I am deciding what college I want to go to next year.

Pm- We warmed up 8 laps on the track and then started a rigorous workout of 10 400s with 50 meter walk and 50 meter jog in between each 400 and a lap in between the first 5 and second 5. I did good today! My splits were 74, 74, 69, 71, 71 for the first one, second was perfect at 68, 68, 66, 73, 62. Well the 73 was a bit slow but I'm happy with this. I averaged about 69.5 which is good considering how little rest we got in between them, during track I would average about  68 on 8 400s with 3 minutes inbetween each and 5-7 minutes between the first 4 and second 4. So not much slower in a much more difficult workout, I thought today was going to be really hard but most of those 400s were easy, it was a good type of suprising.

Today was a good workout although we didn't quite hit our goal, we could have though. We were supposed to do 9 miles in an hour and we were pretty close, it were easy until the last time we were on the track when I was running in lane 8 and some were running in lane 4 so I kept on having to slow down and speed up because of the turns, but they were decently fast as well as easy. It took us just over an hour to run these 9 miles, we were averaging upper 6 minute range minutes per mile. It felt good, it's nice to run behind people on windy days like today but often times if I'm in the front and I let one person pass me, I'm in the very back within a minute. It was an good workout, I felt great and didn't really feel any problems. My lungs are getting stronger. I slept for more than 8 hours, maybe 9 last night which is very good and I've really been feeling the difference in energy today, I've just felt better overall. I wasn't looking forward to prefootlocker until today, after last years race and this years grass relays I've had a growing distaste for the course. But I think I just need to correct my mistakes from those races and move on. My goal for this race will be to break 17 minutes, by a lot. If I am not mistaken, this race is exactly 2 weeks before Nike SouthWest, I want to go to nationals really bad. Making Nationals would be the most amazing thing I've ever done in athletics, I know it would be one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Its a great opportunity that most runners never have, and my team has a shot at it this year. I know we've been working harder than those other schools, we can beat them.

Am- easy 6 miles, they fealt GREAT! I really enjoyed this mornings run, the only hard part of morning runs are starting them. We ran around the track, school, and around storm mountain park. I really enjoyed this mornings run, distance runs take a while to develop a love for, but I've been starting to really like them this season. It just felt great, and whats even better is that I wasn't tired during the day.

Pm- 2 miles warm up and then 4x800 with 2 and a half minutes rest in between each, I ran about 400-500 meters in between these combined. My first 3 800s were ok at 2:26, 2:27, and 2:28 but the last one I had a terrible mentality. I was thinking of the end way too much, I was thinking too much in gereral and I ran a 2:31, it was catostrophic but I was dissapointed in my effort at the beginning of the second lap. The 4th one could have been my fastest so I was a little dissapointed. But theres no reason to dwell on that, I can't change a workout thats already been done. I just need to move forward and remember to leave nothing back on the last lap, I went backwards from monday to wednesday. Monday on my final 400 I gave it all I had, still I wasn't too bad. I averaged 2:28 which is ok considering the tough 3 day stretch we've had, easy days tomorrow and friday!

We only ran in the morning today, we did 4.5 easy miles and then 8 striders and an extra lap. The striders fealt really good today, I fealt a little tired during the 4.5 miles but that's because I got home from work after 9 last night and didn't get to bed until closer to 10 and yesterday was just a really busy day. Overall a good day, I was kind of tired throughout the day but it was still good.

We did a 30 minute easy run and then 2 striders. It fealt easy.

I ran longer than a 5k for this, probably because many spectators were standing on the course but my splits went like 5:23 average for first lap, 5:35ish for the 2nd lap and while I was running o the track after I finished the second lap,someone was saying 11:13 or something which isn't what 5:23 and 5:35 add up too... and I ran a 5:47 pace for the last mile which is not good but that adds up to 16:45 for 3 miles. I forgot stop Coach Murphy's garmin after the race so I'm not sure what the time was but I assume that it was 17:40s because I was on the track at 17:07. After the race we did a 3 mile cooldown and then a 400 at max effort and a cooldown 400 after that, I hit :58 seconds for the max effort 400m which is pretty good. Once I start reaping the benefits of the past 2 weeks, I think I will be able to run really fast in Arizona. I want to go to Oregon for Nike Nationals really bad!!! I'm going to do everything I can to help us get there!!!

Looks like I finished bad, and I did reallly bad, slower than last year...