Good Morning Coyotes!
It’s my first day back on the trails in LA. As always, I got my butt kicked by the SoCal Coyotes.
Delicious snack to fuel your runs and rockstar career!
It is not even 10:30am and already this morning has consisted of 2 hours of office work, a 40 minute run, 2 loads of laundry, making homemade oatmeal for breakfast, and cleaning the apartment. I just took a 10 minute break to make this delicious, energizing, vegan-friendly, EASY snack!
Forgive my poor food photography. It’s good, trust me.
1. Toast bread of your choice. I use something called “sunflower bread” from my local co-op. I love it because it has all kinds of seeds baked into the bread crust. YUM.
2. (Optional) lightly butter with ghee or whatever butter/oil you use
3. Slice and spread about 1/4 of a ripe avocado over bread. Mix in about a teaspoon of chia seeds as you spread.
4. Top off with sliced almonds! Enjoy!
Thanks Me in My Place!
Today is my last day as the featured model on meinmyplace. It’s been such a fun experience. Thanks to everyone who said such nice things! Here’s a few goodies:
I keep a web series on this site that documents adventures in ultra-marathoning and making a career in music. You can find them under the video tab up at the top under “Music and LSD Episodes.”
Here’s one of my favorites:
Here’s the making of the music video I posted a couple of days ago:
You can get my music on itunes here
Keep up with me, touring, new music, videos, pictures, etc, here!
Photo from American Thrift Show!
American Thrift (Baton Rouge, LA) posted some photos of my show last month. I can’t wait to return to this awesome venue!!
What is wrong with my stomach?
I just got in from a frustrating run. About a month ago out on a trail run I had really bad stomach pain during the downhill. It wasn’t a side stitch or a cramp exactly. It feels like a cut, but on the inside of my body and it hurt in my mid-abdominals on both sides. It was near the end of a run and I’m used to random things hurting or being uncomfortable occasionally so I didn’t really think anything of it. It is weird though, because the run was only about an hour long and the hard part of the run was long over.
It happened again 3 days later during a road run. I was running 4 miles at warm-up pace and then 4 miles at marathon race pace. It should have been a pretty easy workout, but a mile in to the warm up, the same pain happened. When it happens I can’t run through it for very long. I couldn’t just walk either, I had to come to a complete standstill for it to stop, and it would. Immediately.
This past week I’ve been in Colorado. On Friday I ran for about an hour and a half without this pain at ALL. Yesterday, I ran for 10 minutes and it started up again. This time, I couldn’t make it go away by stopping. It would go away when I stopped, but it would immediately start up as soon as I started running. I was only able to run about a mile and it was with walk breaks.
Today it was bothering me from the first step. I ran for 40 minutes and only ran about 2.5 miles. I stopped to stand and rest or walk constantly. I don’t think I was even able to run for 3 minutes straight.
Katelyn = most frustrated.
More about the pain: it’s not a sharp stabbing. It hurts like I have an open wound in my abs. It stings. The pain doesn’t move, it’s always in the same place. I keep looking at my stomach as though I’ll see something visibly wrong. Food doesn’t make it better or worse, although my appetite has been almost zero for about a month now, but I don’t think it is related. It stops as soon as I stop running.
Thanks for visiting!
Most of you are here from the Me in My Place plug. Thanks for visitng! Here’s a few things to share:
Cool music video I did a couple years ago:
You can get my music on itunes here
And keep up with me, touring, new music, videos, pictures, etc, here!
Hey Colorado! Come say hello tonight!
Tonight is the night! I’ll be playing at Swallow Hill at 7:30 tonight with Kyle James Hauser. I am SO excited about this show! It’s only $7 at the door (or $5 if you’re a Swallow Hill member). I won’t be back until the end of the year! Come out tonight for an intimate performance in a really cool venue!
Swallow Hill is located at:
71 E. Yale Blvd
Denver, CO
More Info from the Uncle Nasty Show!
Thanks for everyone who tuned in today to KBPI for my on-air interview with Uncle Nasty! Here’s more info on the stuff we talked about!
First of all – you can buy my music here.
TOMORROW NIGHT I’m playing at Denver’s Swallow Hill. Click here for the show info. Let me know that you heard me on the Uncle Nasty show and get my CD for only $5 at the show!
Want to check out my videos? I have a ton of videos posted here on the site under the video tab. You can see everything from my award-winning music video to my adventures in running 100 miles. They’re also all in one place on my youtube channel.
The Me in my Place photos can be viewed on the front page of their site (meinmyplace.com) while I’m still the featured model. Enjoy!
And last, here’s all the ways YOU can connect with ME
LIKE me on facebook for news, shows, music, videos, pics, etc.
And check this BLOG daily for updates!
Katelyn Benton on the radio!
Hey Everyone!
I will be on the Uncle Nasty show on Denver’s 106.7 KBPI TODAY!! Be sure to listen in! Follow my twitter for updates on when the interview will air! You can listen online here and you can buy my music here!
On the road!
Hey folks! I’ll be traveling Monday through Tuesday so I won’t be posting anything until possibly Wednesday. In the mean time, here’s my music video and some other goodies.
An interesting comment…
This week, I have been featured on the website Me in my Place. I wrote about doing the shoot a little while back and how extremely empowering it was. This week, watching the different pictures go up has been both very exciting and a little terrifying. I mean, there’s no going back now and it took a lot of guts for me to step out of my shell long enough to do this and figure out that it’s okay to love your body. I don’t usually go into fitness/health/diet/body image rants here even though I’d say it is a very dominating topic in my life as an athlete. There is so much negativity being fed to young girls and women on a daily basis. I’d love to be part of a different type of beauty movement, something that supports strong, confident, happy women, of every shape and size. Not only the skinny and tall and not only because they look good in designer clothes.
Now that the photos are up, I have been getting a lot of support and positive feedback from friends and loved ones. I’d have to say that the only real negative side I’ve had with this was my initial reaction to one comment on one of the photos that posted later in the week. Whoever was looking at that photo really didn’t like how I talked about myself in my quotes. Obviously, it’s not my goal to have everyone like me and I don’t need this person’s approval for me to feel complete, but what I hated about it is how it immediately made me feel like withdrawing. It made me feel like I needed to be embarrassed or ashamed that I had shared my accomplishments and attributes with the world and that I should have instead been pretty and quiet.
It’s so gross how my natural reaction at first was to just feel squashed – as though I had my head in the clouds with this experience, learning to let go of insecurities, engaging in an attitude of loving myself and showing that to the world in hopes that it is contagious and it will spread, and then someone else’s silly comment made me feel like I should be embarrassed. When really, there should be more confident women out there telling the world what they are capable of. Thicker skin = grown 
(hops off soap box)
Where I work it out
Temescal
Hold on to your hats….
My Me in my Place shoot is beginning to post today, starting with this charming photo of Thomas and I in matching outfits and matching expressions
If you’re asking for a sign, don’t ignore it when one comes along
Really Katelyn. How can you say you’re a blogger when you haven’t posted all WEEK? Boo – sorry friends. I had such a good update streak going before I fell down completely exhausted about a week ago and haven’t had much interaction with the world since then. To say I’m tired would be an understatement.
I’ve written briefly about how I am going to need to do some serious fund-raising (and FAST) to get my record going. I’ve been fighting the urge to disengage and spend all day in bed by throwing together information kits to give to potential investors, but really, if I don’t plan every moment of my day the night before, I may very well spend it in bed protesting the work that needs to be done before I can get back to work. This isn’t helpful. I know. And to be fair to myself, far more has happened this Summer that has contributed to this feeling of defeat and exhaustion that wouldn’t be appropriate to share here. I very well could probably benefit from a couple days of detachment and rest, but I’m not sure how to do that without feeling like the entire world will collapse upon my absence.
I think everyone feels this way when they’re overwhelmed and stressed.
Well, last week I decided to go to some audition. I wasn’t invested in the idea of going at all. It was for a show I hadn’t heard of, it wasn’t really a paying gig, and I had to drive into the hot hot hot valley to get there and hopefully not be stuck in traffic the whole way there and back. However, I knew it would be good for me to leave the house. I would ultimately feel better just knowing I had at least gone somewhere that day. The audition was fine (got a call back, not sure if I’ll take it or not because it may be while I’m in CO), but the interesting part of the outing happened right as I was loading my keyboard up into my car. As though my eyeballs were made out of magnets, in the midst of maneuvering that heavy keyboard into the back of my Subaru, they fixed their gaze directly at the road beneath my feet and locked in on something laying there on the ground. Right in front of me was a $100 bill. No one else was even in sight. It was just me, my keyboard, and seemingly a gift from the universe to smack me into realizing that I am fortunate, my music IS worth pursuing, and I will come up with the money to fund my project. I consider myself to be more spiritual than strictly religious, but that doesn’t mean I miss signs from God when they’re right in front of me. A couple of weeks ago I cried to myself asking the universe for some sign that I was even supposed to be doing this anymore. It was a very sad, lonely and dark moment for me. In the time between then and now I have had two people donate to my cause without officially launching my campaign, a close friend of mine donated her graphic design services to make my information kits look professional and lovely, and here right on the ground in front of me was a $100 bill. WHO finds $100 in the street? I bet you’re mad at me a little, because just by me telling you my story of finding $100 makes it much less likely the same will happen to you. It’s rare. I’ll take it as a sign because that’s what I asked for. You don’t ask for signs and then ignore them when they come.
Thanks for coming out to The Mint!
Thanks to everyone who came out to The Mint in Los Angeles last night. We had a great show including 2 encore songs. You all made my entire week. I’m so lucky to get to play with such great musicians and to have a following of such wonderful and supportive people. Thanks for filling the house!
For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are some photos tagged on facebook/twitter from last night. Enjoy!
photo by Meg Boberg
photo by Meg Boberg
Photo by Ellie Krysl
Photo by Katie DeSplinter
[PHOTO] Me jamming in my place before tonight’s show at The Mint?
Anyone interested in a [PHOTO] of me jamming in my place before tonight’s show at The Mint?
I’m at Mile 90 in a 100 Mile Race
I’m going to be straight forward here. This has not been my week. A combination of being tired from travel and tired from crewing, my defenses have been down lately which have left me vulnerable to getting stuck in a pretty negative place. I’ve learned this week that Scott and I are going to need to do some serious fund raising if there’s any hope of this record getting done. Fund raising to the tune of $10,000+, which is overwhelming enough to keep me hiding in bed with the covers pulled over my head. Logically I know that I will find a way to see this record through and I’ll find people who really want to help me, but because of my state of mind going into this week, I really took the entire event as a personal blow from the universe to me.
How vain of me to even think that, really. That the universe specifically wants me to have love and passion for something but then at the same time seems to throw hurdle after hurdle at me. I know that the music business is tough, but it’s hardly a choice I have rather than the one thing that I feel like I’m on the planet to do. It chose me. Many days I wish I could be satisfied being something more attainable, because it seems I break my own heart just as often as I feel fulfilled. But really, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing because…. well, I don’t actually have a choice.
I spent most of yesterday brainstorming (in between my fits of anger aimed at whatever higher power was obviously out to get me I have a lot of good ideas of ways to go about raising money over the next 6 weeks. I know the next steps I will be taking. I know I am a hard worker, I won’t let this completely flatten my momentum even though that’s how I feel right now. I do have things I can do. This is an “action” moment – a moment where the ball is in my court and I can make a difference when it comes to what comes next. The thing is, is that I’m just too tired. I feel like I generally attempt to see the positive light in most things. I try to be a compassionate person, I try and stay optimistic because I really do believe that it comes back to you, but right now I just feel like a well that has been completely tapped of it’s resources.
In the ultra-running world, I would say that it feels like I just finished climbing a mountain. I spent all day climbing this mountain and I’m at the top only to find another mountain (thanks for the reference, Toby). It feels like the low points of a hundred miler. It feels like I’m at mile 90, I know the things I have to do to finish and I know I CAN do those things, I’m just feeling the fatigue of the miles I’ve already covered and every step forward takes 100% of my concentration and energy.
This morning I managed to get my pouting self out of bed and out to the weekly Coyote trail run. I walked up the Westridge fire road with Jimmy, Adam and Malcolm. Malcolm is Adam’s English Setter, and is what we consider the closest thing we have to a hazing ritual in the Coyotes. Malcolm is by far, the fastest Coyote. We have what we call the “Malcolm Challenge” where one brave soul runs Malcolm all the way up Westridge fire road, and even more challenging, all the way down on the single track. Once, we even strapped cameras to the runner and the dog to document the journey.
Watch out Usain Bolt!
The four of us hiked along as I shared some personal details of my current disposition on my life and career. When we had hiked and talked our way up the fire road a ways before we crossed over onto the single track where Jimmy handed me Malcolm and told me it was time to run.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I still felt like questioning the universe and it was much easier to hike and vent than it was to run Malcolm down the mountain, even if it was only halfway down. I struggled to keep up with him, even though he was still practically walking some of the bits. Nervous about my recently sprained ankle, I had to focus all my energy on not landing funny on my left foot as I was jerked awkwardly down the mountain.
The entire time, I heard the message loud and clear, when I hit a bump in the road, I amazingly DO have what I need to move forward. Ultra marathons are a series of highs and lows. The key is figuring out how to quickly rebound from the lows (paraphrase – Jimmy this morning). This is why I run. I’m not an impressive athlete by any means. I just happen to be able to run for a long time, and I’m attracted to that because I feel understood by trail running in a way that I feel understood by music. I’m definitely at a low point, but that means that this is the part before it gets better.
:(
Days like this make me wish I had aspired to be something more attainable.
Crewing for a Hundred Mile Ultra, and the Two Questions to Never Ask Your Runner
This past weekend was the Angeles Crest hundred miler. Several of my friends were running this year, including my coach, Jimmy Dean Freeman, and good friend Dominic Grossman, who I crewed last year at Badwater. I was crew chief for my friend Adam Bowman. It was his first hundred miler attempt. I liked the idea of crewing for Adam, because he seems like a similar runner to me in the sense of how much fun he has on the trails and how easy going he is. I’ve crewed several races in the past where I have been the only person crewing and I only have 30 seconds at the most with my runner who usually knows exactly what he needs and has calculated every calorie of the race. Crewing for someone who doesn’t require this sort of specialized attention (yet) is a little more laid back, but it did show me how much I know about this sport. This weekend I learned something about myself. I know more than I thought I did. The experience made me text my friend/great ultra-runner, Brian Krogmann to let him know that thanks to him, I know a lot about crewing. The first time I crewed for him I was just about brought to tears, and then the races I crewed for him after, we had sort of gotten used to each other and ended up learning to work a little better with each other.
Brian and I at our first race together, my first hundred miler where he stepped in with all his experience to help my chief-less crew support me.
You don't even have to be an ultra-runner to be a great crew chief! This is my best friend Nicole Latorre. She knows me better than most people and is without a doubt completely capable of being in charge of my well being during a hundred miler.
I crewed with 4 other trail runners without a huge history of ultras. There may have been a couple of ultras between the 4 of them, but it was one of the first times I definitely felt like I had the knowledge to share. I ran into some trouble with communicating with my runner at points. The great part about having a whole crew is that the crew chief can delegate tasks to everyone and work out a smooth transition from aid station to aid station in order to help their runner get back on the trails as quickly as possible. The challenge of having a crew is that everyone has ideas and emotions and it is sometimes hard to take the lead of a group. I don’t believe it is helpful for 5 people to approach a runner when he comes through, asking what he needs, especially when he looks like shit. It’s overwhelming, and asking too many questions isn’t helpful for a runner. If there is a situation when a runner is in distress, the crew chief needs to be able to have a one on one conversation with him so they can tell him what to do next. It was really hard for me to have to get my runner to concentrate on my voice and not the other people around me. Especially the voices that were asking how he was feeling, or what he wanted to do, two questions I don’t believe are appropriate for ultra-marathons. I think I could have done a better job of establishing control from the beginning.
Team Magpie Mustache - Adam in the middle, I'm on the far right.
Adam started very strong. He’s a strong runner in general. When we crossed paths at the Leona Divide 50 miler, he gave me a high five that practically burned my hand off. He looked very strong and happy and he finished impressively. This is the runner I saw for the first 20 or so miles of Angeles Crest. However, it got hot pretty fast and I told the crew that at Cloudburst Summit (37.5 miles in), I expected us to see Adam in the midst of his first physical and possibly mental low point of the race. Sure enough, Adam looked a little wiped coming out of that particular section. He was complaining of feeling light headed, bloated, and not being able to pee. He had been doubling up on Salt Stick and I was beginning to wonder if maybe he was over doing it on the salt. The same thing happened to me at Leona. My fists looked like boxing gloves I was so swollen, and once I cut back on my salt, I immediately started feeling better. This was our plan for the next section – to cut back on salt a little.
He arrived at the next aid station (Three Points, 42.7 miles), looking much stronger. He was running again, his spirits were up, he wasn’t feeling light headed anymore. We saw this as a promising sign of a real turn around. We got him back on the trails and headed to grab a bite to eat before meeting up with him at Chilao (52.8 miles in). I wanted to be at Chilao for 5:00pm, predicting he would arrive between 5:15-5:30. He didn’t come through until around 7:00pm. When he arrived he was suffering from some pretty bad cramping in his legs (by this point, he had resumed his salt stick intake to about 1 per hour – 1 per hour and a half). Coming down the hill to the aid station, his legs cramped so badly that they came out from underneath him completely. The medic helped me rub out his legs with bio freeze, which Adam couldn’t even feel. I also managed to grab a coconut water from another runner’s crew. We sat him down and had him finish the coconut water and also drink soup mixed with rehydration salts. We invested a lot of time at that aid station trying to do everything we could to help him regulate his system. The medic said he should pee within about 20 minutes of taking the rehydration salts. We sent him off with a pacer, Paul, and drove up to Shortcut Saddle (59 miles in), where I expected to see him somewhere between 9:15-9:30pm. I didn’t see him until well after 10pm, and by that time I knew it wasn’t going to be wise to go on. I knew what kind of runner Adam was, and he hadn’t been running like himself since the 50k point. When he came through with news that he still hadn’t peed, it solidified my gut feeling that we shouldn’t go on. Adam knew this too. He knew that for some reason beyond our control, this was not the right day for him to run 100 miles. We did everything we could at every point during the race. I really was impressed by how unemotional Adam stayed. He was completely collected and didn’t let irrational fears or emotions get in the way of doing everything he physically could to continue on, and then, eventually pull himself from the race.
Adam and I the night before the race start
I’m excited for his next attempt, which I probably won’t be able to be his crew chief for because I think I’ll be running the same hundred miler (Javelina Jundred! So much fun!). As for the rest of the coyotes who ran, it was quite a day. Dominic ended up winning the race, Jimmy came in sub 24 hours, our friend George finished his first hundred, and Katie DeSplinter (as seen in previous Music and LSD episodes) finished like a freaking champion. What an amazing adventure.
Coyotes! AC100 runners and their crew resting after a long weekend of running.
I wouldn’t say that crewing inspires me to race. I love running ultras, but when I’m crewing I always wonder, “why in the world does anybody do this?”
It’s completely retarded.
Relaxing with champions at Adam's post-race bbq
Related Videos
Crewing Badwater
San Diego Hundred Miler
Be back Monday!
I’ll be up crewing at the Angeles Crest 100 miler this weekend. Look for an update on Monday!
Be back tomorrow folks!
Sorry for not having an update for you yesterday! I’m on my way back to Los Angeles right now and will be back to regular updates tomorrow!
In the mean time, you should totally check Peter Simon! He’s a great singer/songwriter from Baton Rouge and his music will make you want to spread it like a wildfire. He rocks!
Check out his Facebook page here,
