Welcome back or welcome to the Single Track Podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and today's

conversation is part of a short-term, maybe longer-term fascination with track and field speedsters

and their potential influence on our sport. Widely recognized as one of America's best

middle-distance runners in the 2010s,

Ben Blankenship joins the show to talk about his move into ultra-trail running,

racing the Rabid Raccoon 100 in March,

the nature of obsession and the willingness to push the limits at the top of the sport,

the allure of the dirtbag runner lifestyle, and his experience at

the 2015 UTMB watching the likes of David Laney, Tim Tullifson, and Zach Miller throw down

in that memorable year. With that, let's get into it. Ben Blankenship, it is a pleasure to have you

on the single track podcast. How are you doing

today? Good. I feel very out of my element, but I'm excited to be here. I love that. And,

yeah, you know, I was telling you offline, we rarely do backgrounds on this show. And the real ones,

they know your resume, but I do feel obligated to talk about

some of it. And I've got to recite some of your resume just because this is a trail running

specific podcast. So a couple things. You've won gold at the 2015 World Relay champs, took

seventh in the 1500 at the 2016 Rio Games. In my opinion, though, your most impressive feat,

you recently became the fourth human to ever break 335 in the 1500 and 220 in the marathon.

I didn't realize that that was such a short list because I feel like there are more

complete runners out there in the universe.

Did that surprise you too?

It's only Americans. I found the, Kyle Merber found this very obscure stat that I felt

...