Snake Eyes – Oh She Glows

Good afternoon!

Sorry for the delay in post today, it has been a crazy day!

Let’s get right into it with the winner of the chia seed giveaway:

Congrats to Nehal who said, ‘I usually try to fit in some yoga on my rest days. I love the free 20 min. sessions on yogadownload.com!’ Nehal please email me [email protected] with your address. Congrats!

Don’t despair if you didn’t win, I am having another chia seed giveaway tomorrow! :D You can also check out Julia’s Compassionate Cooks Recipe giveaway going on until Friday!

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Snake Eyes

I was up early this morning baking + packing up my orders. I knew I wanted to go for a long run, so I got a good 3 hours of work done by 10am. As I get busier and busier, I am going to start my baking earlier and earlier because it really gives me a jump start on the day. I love knowing that I already finished 3 orders before 10am!

Back to my long run today…

I ran SNAKE EYES!!!!

11 miles, baby!

I didn’t see fairies, rainbows, and unicorns like Saturday’s run, but I would say it was still a decent run! I can’t really complain. :) I didn’t bring any homemade energy gel with me today because I wanted to do a little experiment and see how my body managed without any fuel. I definitely noticed a drop in energy from miles 7-9 compared to when I have the gel.

The run:

Murder Hill Route

Distance: 11 miles

Duration: 1 hour 55 mins 43 secs.

Avg Pace: 10:31 min/mile

Max pace: 7:38 min/mile

Max HR: 165 bpm

Avg HR: 146 bpm

I stopped to walk for about 30 seconds almost every mile.

I rocked out to Nirvana, Green Day, and Offspring on this run. I totally love running to old school music! I had a couple blissed out moments on this run, but no where near the running high I had last Saturday. Today’s run felt like all business. ;)

I noticed today that I am a bit ahead of schedule in terms of my long runs and where I thought I would be. I have 17 days until my half-marathon, so I might fit in 2 long runs and still allow for a taper week. But, I’m not sure.

What do you guys think about running the actual race distance the week before the race? Initially, I wasn’t going to run 13 miles during training, but now that I have a bit more time, I am considering it.

Do you think it is beneficial to run the race distance beforehand or do you think it just increases the rick of pre-race injuries?

I think I will probably stick to my plan and make 12 miles my longest run. I don’t know if running 1 more mile will help me that much more.

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Beating Exercise Fears

Eric and I went on a hike the other day and guess who had another snake encounter??? MOI! I don’t know what it is with me and snakes when I go hiking! We were hiking in a really rocky area and I thought to myself, ‘Oh my GOSH, snakes LIKE rocks!!!’ And not even 2 minutes after, I saw a black snake right by my foot! It looked like this:

Only it was about half the length as the one photographed and a bit skinnier.

I screamed ‘SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ and ran as fast as I could. Eric laughed his head off. I think my heart rate jumped about 40 beats/min.!

Anyways, I swore I would never come back to the trail to run because I was so scared. But, then I thought, well that is a bit silly. I love trail running.

So yesterday I strapped on my sneakers and had a lovely trail run, even though I was terrified of coming across another snake. No snake sights this time! Sometimes, you just have to face your fears and ignore the mental tricks your mind plays on you. I will admit, I was really scared on the trails yesterday and I was VERY jumpy at the smallest rustling noise I heard. I actually screamed when I heard a squirrel in the leaves! LOL. But, I kept on!

Have you ever overcome an exercise fear? What was it?

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I need to get back to work despite wanting to sleep under my desk. ;) I am going to take the next 1-2 days off of exercise to rest up. I may do 20 minutes of light walking tomorrow to see if that improves my recovery.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

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Pam

15 years ago

Congrats on the super long run!

Soo for some reason this morning, I woke and said to myself, “get up and glo!” lol. Apparently your blog has influenced my life.

Thanks!!

Madelin @ What is for breakfast?

Congrats on your run! Well done. I like to practice the race course first (if possible) so I know what I’m in for!!

Laura

Our half group long runs prior to race day are:
17km
18km
19km
20km
21km
6km
We always run the full distance for our half training and if the clinic is longer, we go up to 22km. We get a full taper/rest week in however so we are well rested.

Kristen

For my first two half-marathons I didn’t run the full distance before the race. For the first one, I’m glad I didn’t and for the second I wish I had. If you feel like it will do more good than harm, go for it but if you are questioning whether or not it is a good idea, maybe it isn’t. Listen to your body and I’m sure you’ll make the right call.

Kelly

I think you are safe running a max of 11 miles before your half-marathon. You don’t want to overdo it from a training standpoint and on the day of the race adrenaline will push you through those last 2.1 miles! :-) When I was training for my first half marathon, my max training run was 10 miles! And when I was training for my first full marathon, my max training run was 18 miles.

You are ready and will do great!

Dotsie

Yiiiikes, I don’t like snakes either. After Hurricane Katrina, I left New Orleans and went to stay with a cousin in College Station. I had absolutely nothing to do but HEAL and I walked around the lake she lived on—only to be followed by an angry looking dog who GROWLED the whole entire way around the lake. I was scared out of my mind! I was told to carry a stick when I walked. I didn’t walk around the lake alone after that!

Sarah

When I did my half marathon training last year, I never ran more than 11 miles and I did just fine. However, I don’t think if I had run 13 before the race that it would’ve made that much of a difference. I made sure to have that longest run almost 2 weeks before the race so I had enough time to recover and then taper leading up to race day. Good luck!

Kayzilla

lol. I’d react the same way. Not so much if I was forewarned there was a snake, but the whole surprise thing doesn’t run too well with me.

Btw, do you know what’s up with your RSS feed? :( I’m not getting anymore RSS updates, and it kinda makes me sad.

Lauren

Hey Angie!

First of all, what a fantastic run! Way to go girly!!
Second, I’ve heard the same about not running the full amount of miles of the race beforehand. I really don’t think it would be harmful to run the full thing beforehand; however, I think they may suggest this for more of a mental approach (espeically for first time marathoners) so that when you are racing and you are approaching that final mile or two, your motivation sky rockets because you realize you are reaching a new PR! I think you should do whatever you think is best for you physically and mentally and you will do just fine.

Thanks for your sweet good luck wishes for my 1/2 this weekend. You know I will be only sending you the same motivating and postive vibes when you run yours in a few weeks. I wish we could do our 1st 1/2 marathons together, but I guess we will just be with each other in tought and prayers! :)

Take care hun!

Jeri

Hey. I just started following your blog recently and love it. :) I have my 5th HM this Sunday, and this is the 1st time I’ve ran the 13.1 as a training run. I did it 2 weeks out though, and only did 12 last week, to allow my legs extra rest time. I really enjoyed it and felt like it gave me a HUGE boost of confidence. I’m planning on doing a 14 on my next training plan just for something different (ok really just for a personal distance record :p).