Luke De-Benedictis - Ambassadors during Lockdown

I'm Luke De-benedictis and I'm probably best known in terms of sports as an obstacle course racer where I've been competing in the UK spartan race series the past few years and I'm also part of the UK Spartan Pro team (since 2019). since fi9nd this the sport of OCR back in 2016 I've managed to go form the open waves to winning Spartan Race and competing at World/European Championship events in Italy, France, Spain and the US. Hopefully I'll be able to compete at another European Championship event in December 2020 that has been re-located to Tenerife from Austria due to the current global situation.  

Also, I'm very active in the local trail running seen and sometimes event test my speed on the roads every now and then.  =

What are your personal bests?

5k - 16:43 (current TT 16:58)

10k - 35:20 

What have you been doing during lockdown?

Lockdown wasn't too bad for myself really i go to spend a lot more time with my young daughter which was lovely and i made the best of it training wise to keep getting in consistent workouts and mileage was pretty nice to have the time to do this, normally it a lot of early mornings or rushed sessions between work and sleep.  

I did managed to set a FKT time during lockdown on the North Dorset Trailway, which has now been beaten so I'll have to venture out there one day to give it another go.  

Did COVID-19 affect many events / training?

Well it’s pretty much pushed back my race season, before the lockdown I had 3 trail races win's as I was building up very nicely to the start of the Spartan race season, although I've had plenty of time to train it’s been an balancing act not to over train or peak for no real need, hopefully I've timed it right and will have a strong backend of the year performance wise.

How did you cope with training during lockdown?

Lots of indoor training, a few virtual events to keep me competitive and keep up the running. 

How have you found being an ambassador for XMiles?

It's been good the range of nutrition they have on offer via the website is excellent, tried some of the honystinger gels and they were amazing! 

What do you have planned for the future?

I took down one FKT route out in north Dorset during lockdown, you can see here. I'm really looking to do another one but having trouble with the logistics as its 36 miles so I’ll have to see if I can sort that. Race wise I'm jumping in the Dorset Maverick race on August 15th which will be great to race again! I'll be racing the 3 UK Spartan Race event that are in October and November also in a crazy turn of events I've sign up for the Ultra X world championships in 2021 so that will be an adventure - I do coach competitive obstacle course racer via online programs, I'm a qualified Spartan SGX coach and PT