Running is a sport where athletes tend to stay in their lane. In cycling, it’s not uncommon to see a rider race for three weeks in the Tour de France, then under a month later go and win Olympic gold in the 4000m Pursuit in the velodrome. In running, ‘range’ is being competitive in the 1500m and the 5000m. Athletes like Sifan Hassan, who in the space of one season can run world class times over distances from the Mile to the Marathon, are notable for their rarity. For most elite runners, the demands of one event is enough.
That was the case for Ben Blankenship. For most of his pro career he stayed in his lane, earning a living as a miler, racing middle distance events across the globe and representing the USA at the 2016 Olympics. But Covid changed things. Technology changed, times got faster and more consistent, people began to question what they were doing with their lives. That was the case for Blankenship. First he began to train for a marathon with a goal of qualifying for the 2024 Olympic trials. But when that happened, with a 2:16 at the McKirdy Micro Marathon in 2023, he chose not to stay in his lane. In fact, he chose to keep going, running longer and longer distances, taking everything he’d learned as a pro on the track to life as a self-proclaimed ‘dirtbag’ ultrarunner.
“I was kind of a weird kid,” says Blankenship, who aged 35 now lives in Eugene, Oregon. “We had just moved to a new town, and my soon-to-be High School coach set up these all-comers meets. It was really geared towards kids in the community. That was my first real interaction with track. It was a terrible experience. One that I did not want to recreate for a very long time.”
Like a lot of American teenagers, Blankenship found himself coming back to track, attending a high school that ran a successful program. “It was just something you did,” he says, “and it was the first thing that I was good at.”
Success at high school led to Mississippi State University, and then a transfer to the University of Minnesota, where he became the first Golden Gopher to run a sub-4 minute mile, running 3:57 at the indoor Washington Qualifier meet in 2010.
“The NCAA is really a big industrial complex,” he says, looking back. “It wasn’t something I ever sought. I never had a timeframe or real ambition, I just thrived on competition. I always rose to the challenge and that was the funniest part for me. And this has had a grip on me for a really long time.”
After college and some time away from competition, Blankenship found himself in Eugene, Oregon, training with the Oregon Track Club. He made Eugene his home and found a real groove in his running there, running pr’s in the mile and 1500m in 2015 and in 2016, finishing third at the Olympic Trials, earning himself a spot in the 1500m at the Rio Olympic Games. What’s it like to walk out onto a track in front of 80,000 fans and have your race be the center of everyone’s attention? “You’re only on stage for a few minutes, right. Those few moments, you can be anybody you want. You don’t have to be yourself. I was always able to disassociate – when I get out on track, I don’t have to be Boring Ben. When I stepped into this ultra space, I realized it’s hard to play a character. You’re out there for so long and there’s too many vulnerable moments.”
To Blankenship, that vulnerability is the defining difference between track and ultra running: “I don’t know if they relate to each other at all, other than the fact that you’re running. The possibility of ultrarunning is limitless versus what it was on the track.”
When the pandemic came around in 2020, like a lot of athletes, Blankenship found things difficult. “I always felt that for me to remain where I was in the sport, I always had to be on it. And it’s always, nine, 10 months away to the next championships. When the pandemic hit, it made me step back. I’d never thought about anything other than running and I kinda learned that I’d gotten old and a little slow. The opportunity to run a little further came along and took advantage, thinking I could retool myself.”
That process led Blankenship to the marathon, the 100 mile distance, and now, a couple of years into this ultra journey, he’s stepping back down through the distances in a new challenge that he calls The Great Descent. “I felt like I was in this bit of space to do whatever I want,” he says. “So I came up with this idea of running 100 miles, and then within six months, I want to break 4-minutes in the mile. And in between, I want to divide each distance in half, so I started at 100, then 50, a marathon, a half marathon, and then a mile. I’m skipping some distances at the end, but within that six months I want to be as competitive as possible.”
‘Competitive’ isn’t something you lose easily. So far Blankenship placed third in the Hood Hundred and second in the high-altitude Grand Traverse 50 mile. “That was one of the hardest races I’ve had yet. The altitude kinda kicked my ass a little,” he says, before adding “that was super fun.”
Next up for Blankenship is the California International Marathon in Sacramento on December 8. “I knew this would be the turning point of the Great Descent,” he says. “I went from a lot more strength to a little more speed. How efficient can I be at marathon pace? Each time, I’m just trying to retool myself.”
How does a background in speed impact his training and racing now? “I think it’s helped,” says Blankenship. “No matter what you have to run fast. I think a lot about ground-up mechanics, like, how is your foot interacting with the ground? I think speed development really helped me recover and move efficiently, and construct my training a little better.”
This discussion of running mechanics leads us inevitably to shoes. In the summer of 2024, after a career spent with one of the world’s largest businesses, Blankenship signed with Mount to Coast. As someone who competed right through the supershoe revolution, what does a runner of Blankenship’s athletic pedigree and inquisitive disposition look for in a shoe? “I wanted to be in a shoe that I knew I would get the most out of” he says. “I wanted a shoe that reminded me of what I did in the past, where I put on a shoe and did almost everything in it. I was sick of lugging around a bunch of shoes to do three different things. I got a pair of the R1s really early and started logging miles in them, doing faster stuff, out on the trails. I just kept coming back to them. I logged 800 miles in that pair and that was shocking to me – I really started to believe in them. You know, it’s responsive, but it still allows my foot to do so much work, and I love that. I think there’s a romance to putting a shitload of miles on a shoe and then throwing it in the garage and looking at it every once in a while and thinking, yeah, that was a whole training block.”
We think Ben and the R1 make a great team, and we’re excited to share some new members of that squad in the coming months. You can follow Ben’s adventures on Instagram and Strava – he shares all his workouts and races there.
Words by Andy Waterman