Benji Xie

Age: 25
Events: marathon
Hometown: El Dorado Hills, CA
College competed for: MIT

Personal Bests

1500: 4:02
mile (indoor): 4:17.49
3k (indoor): 8:38
5k (indoor): 14:30
8k (xc): 25:11
10k: 30:48
half marathon: 1:09
marathon: 2:20

Career Highlights

While competing at MIT in cross country track, Benji contributed to 8 conference titles and 7 regional titles, while also representing the Engineers at two national championships.

In January 2015, Benji broke the MIT indoor record in the 5k, running 14:30.07. His former teammate would break his record a year later. They're still friends.

About

Benji alternates between running from and running towards things. He started running in middle school after not making the basketball team, and stuck with running since. He enjoyed running enough in high school to continue it into college, running for MIT in New England. At MIT, he got the privilege to be on a team with some of the very best people he'd ever met. Together, they worked towards many conference and regional titles and were competitive at the national level. After taking a few years off, Benji is excited to chase new goals with the CNW family. He sees running as a nice life metaphor of how balance is key to staying healthy and persistence is key to growth.

When not donning short shorts, Benji can usually be found researching in a basement at the University of Washington, where he is a PhD candidate studying information science. His long-term girlfriend Nicole is also a PhD student at UW and is a much more accomplished runner than he'll ever be. Their rescue dog Curie can beat Benji in short sprints, although Benji claims the dog cheats.