Resurgence of Ben Blankenship - The Downfall (Part 1)
A story of continued determination followed by setbacks is not a unique one to be told but being able to overcome this cycle is often not found. Every time something stops a person from being at their best, they are challenged to find a way to get better, stronger, and more resilient. For many they are unable to overcome these setbacks whether in life or sports, those who do get past them can be an example to push through the tough times. The question though is, what happens when a person faces the same setback not once but multiple times. Are they willing to fight? Are they willing to suffer? Are they willing to sacrifice? This story is about the few who are able to overcome the emotion, the voices, the pain, to succeed. Ben Blankenship’s journey encompasses all this starting back in his junior year of 2011 while running for the University of Minnesota.
At the 2011 NCAA indoor track and field championships, Blankenship would race the Mile and Distance Medley Relay (DMR), which he would finish second and third respectively in. This meet was meant to be a steppingstone for the very anticipated 2012 track season, which was an Olympic year. With Outdoor season around the corner “We made a decision it would be best to go into the Olympic year under the same coach and kinda stay with the same program. I had some really good guys around me, guys like Hassan Mead, … Chris Rombough, … Ben Pool, … Mike Torchia.” Having that strong support staff around Blankenship, he would decided to redshirt the outdoor season, “I would have had one more year of eligibility of indoors and outdoors in 2012 and kinda stick with the same coach and have kinda a normal year going into the trials.” Instead of racing with the University of Minnesota Ben Blankenship would run unattached in the spring and summer of 2011. “I went to Stanford ran well there, ran in the International Mile at Pre and I actually went on to run a bunch of races in Europe.” During the 2011 season Blankenship would break 3:40 over a half dozen times, over a span of a 6 months.
With a successful track season, Blankenship was now looking to get fit during the fall before taking on his final track season at the University of Minnesota. “I had used up all my cross county eligibility and I actually took a coaching job at my former alma mater, Stillwater high school, so I was coaching there and taken basic classes at the U to keep me eligible.” Going home for the fall season, Blankenship was able to train, work, and go to school all at the same time. After coming back from Europe and starting to train “That’s when I started having a bunch of pain and I just wasn’t able to put consecutive running together.” Over the late summer and early fall this pain would not go away, “It was kinda this long slow build up to decima. It all started in that summer and I had thought it was just overuse. … I extended my season, we had been on the track for six months basically since January and it was just like okay, I’ll get off the track, take a few weeks and I’ll feel better.” With the injury looming around for a few months, Blankenship relied on help and information from the University of Minnesota. “The UofM had so many great resources at the time but it was just like nobody new what it was for sure. Part of me never really advocated for myself and I was just like okay we’ll get this figured out and it just took longer and longer and longer.” With little information on how to resolve the injury, “I’d get a couple days running, couldn’t get past it.” Without being able to run consistently, Blankenship felt “The only reason I’m not running faster is because of this ailment, because I’m having pain. I didn’t realize that it’s all connected.” Trying to find an answer throughout the early fall of 2011, Blankenship was losing valuable time to train for the Olympic trials.
After months of dealing with injuries and trying to find an answer, Blankenship and his camp had come to a conclusion. “It was finally October and it was just like I can barely runner a mile without pain or just put anything together. So, we ended up getting surgery somewhere in that fall time range and that was really all what took me out for 2012.” Going into the surgery “I wasn’t educated enough about it; I just didn’t have that much experience. I didn’t probably do my due diligence on it.” Blankenship continues saying, “We ended up going in for basically a labrum repair, which is pretty typical, a lot of athletes have had them done.” Not fully understanding the surgery Ben Blankenship would struggle recovering afterwards. “I didn’t really know what it all entailed; I had a good doctor that thankfully did a good job. But I didn’t realize how much... the ramifications of post surgery would be like.” With limited understanding, his original hopes of a ;quick recovery was not fulfilled. “The first thought when I came off of Europe was, I’m going to get this surgery, I’m a get better, and I’m going to run faster.” Unfortunately for Blankenship this was not the outcome, the road ahead would be a treacherous climb back to full health. Being unaware of the work he would have to put in, Ben Blankenship says, “I really went in naive not realizing that you’re going to really rebuild the structure, i.e. the strength in and around your hip. You’re going to have to rebuild the imbalances that you’ve developed and relearn to run or at least learn to run with this new stride pattern.” Unaware of the strength he would have to rebuild from almost scratch, Blankenship came out of surgery with an urge to get back to running. “It was like we gotta get back to running, and how do we manage this, especially in my small career, the trials was going to be the biggest thing, like how do we get back to that.” Ben Blankenship focusing on the Olympic trials that were less then a year away, would show his inexperience of recovering from surgery. “I was like itching to run and I just kept plaguing myself that you got to get back to running. To be a good runner, you gotta run.” With that in mind Blankenship would start to train again, about a month after having surgery.
With his priority being the trials and getting back to the track to run, Blankenship would forget about some of the crucial rehab exercises he was supposed to do. Recalling the first months of training, Blankenship says, “I wanted to get back to running, representing my school, and getting back to what I was there for really and I started running, had a few setbacks right away.” These setbacks Ben Blankenship faced early on in his training were warning signs for the months that were to follow. “Then maybe two months out I had a really good duration of training, maybe four weeks, five weeks, of like good mileage and good running.” With some good training Blankenship was feeling optimistic about the future ahead until the end of that training block came to a halt. “Then it was just like everything came apart one day, I had tons of pain, I could hardly walk. It felt like I was right back in the same position and I kinda was.” This was devasting to Ben Blankenship, the trials were half a year away and he would need more then a miracle to get him back on the track in time. This time “I did a ton of damage inside my hip capsule cause I didn’t get stronger, I didn’t do any of the rehab, and I didn’t follow anybody’s direction on how to properly rehab from the surgery.” Going through the second injury would take time and determination to overcome.
Now knowing that he would have to go through more time without running Blankenship’s emotions would freefall out of him. “After the second relapse or trauma, I kind felt like it was all over. It felt like oh surgery didn’t help, my injury is even worse than it was before. I new I had to take a break and I was starring down the barrel of, well the trials are in five, six months and I haven’t run consistently for months, I don’t know what to do here.” Blankenship now forced himself into a tough position with many challenges and decisions needed to be made in the upcoming months. “I wasn’t anywhere close to running even the B standard at that point when we had a and b standards. It was like what do you do, and I don’t know if I personally made the choice or my body made the choice, it was like well you just kinda take a break, figure out how you go forward after that.” With no hope of hitting the National Championship standard, Ben Blankenship would shutdown his season, meaning he would not race for at least another year. With emotions overflowing, Blankenship says, “it was a lot of self-pity and a lot of self-deprecation in terms of just being frustrated, being frustrated that I couldn’t run, being frustrated that it wasn’t resolved yet.” The thought of being away from track and field was a frightening experience, and one that saw him almost lose the sport entirely. “I felt ’12 was my shot, it was probably going to be my only shot, I was coming out of school, I was in great position to try to do something and I felt like if it didn’t happen, it would never happen.” This idea of only being able to make the world team led Blankenship to rethink his future with running. “After I made that decision, it was like alright well, do I stick with it and see if something turns around but there is no guarantee. I took a while off and kinda worked it out from there.” This time off would help direct Ben Blankenship in a way that would change his life forever. Without running for the next several months it would something special for Ben Blanksenship to snap out of this injury ridled slump. The question is what made everything change?
Sneak peak for part 2
During the summer of 2012 while continuing to recover from his injury Blankenship would come across two of the most influential people who would reassure his passion for running. The following moves he made afterwards would change Blankenship’s future for the better. With no idea of what was ahead of him, Ben Blankenship would learn slowly that he had a bright future in front of himself. Part two coming next Friday May 29th.
Direct Quotes from Ben Blankenship via phone interview to Evan Smith. (May 2020)
Photos via Getty images
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