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!
I like to have run the actual distance before a race, but I wouldn’t do it the week before. Usually I try to do it like 2 weeks before. Though I must say, 11 and 12 miles are so close that I really don’t think you need to! The high will for sure push you through that last mile.
Yea that’s what I am thinking too! Better not overdo it!
I have never run my half or full marathon distance before doing the race. Especially before full marathons it is severely looked down upon. Your body needs to fully recover from a long distance so that it can feel like a monster finally unleashed from it’s cage on race day. By letting your legs properly rest and storing up some energy — your excitement and energy will bound through the roof RIGHT when you need it to!
I would suggest sticking to your plan….it’s there for a reason! The last thing you would want to do is get overly ambitious and then risk injury!
Those are my thoughts at least =)
GOOD LUCK!!!!
Great advice!!
This part gave me the most awesomely funny visual:
“Your body needs to fully recover from a long distance so that it can feel like a monster finally unleashed from it’s cage on race day.”
I love it.
Offspring is the best to run to! Congrats on the run!
I only ran up to 12 miles in my half-marathon training, and I felt completely prepared for the run. Plus, it was really exciting to actually be setting a personal distance record while completing the race!!
Congrats on the 11 mile run. I’m not much on running, but you make it sound like fun :). I’m obviously more of a yoga kinda girl myself :). Love me some old skool music when I’m working out. It always makes the time pass by quicker or so it seems.
When I ran a half I did not run the actual distance. I kind of wondered if I would actually make it or not but I felt confident the day of the race and did just fine!
As far as over coming fears I was never much of an exerciser but got into doing triathlons when I was 20. Then one summer I took a cycling instructor course. I waited almost a full year before I actually taught a class but now teach cycling regularly plus got certified to teach Zumba and Group Strength! For someone who never exercised to someone who gets up in front of others to teach it I’ve come a long way and got over a lot of fears!
I think you know this, but my longest run before my half was 8 miles and it went just fine… so i’m sure you’ll do great. Good job on such a good run today..
EWWWWWW I totally saw a black snake like that on my trail run when I was on vacation last week. Yuck Yuck Yuck!
Congrats on the snake eyes.
I’ve worked a 13 miler a couple of weeks ahead of the 1/2 marathon I’m training for into my training plan. If I am behind on my training, I won’t do it and I think I’ll be fine, but ideally I’d like to knock it out b/c I tend to have a real fear of the unknown and I know I’ll be in a better place mentally at the start of the race if I know what running that far feels like.
Ewww! I would have freaked out at that snake too!
Great job on the 11 miles! I’d just stick to the plan you created. To me, it sounds like a great one.
Haha you and snakes sound like me and spiders – a couple weeks ago I FREAKED out. I got into Ross’ truck and there was a spider – I started shrieking. It was ridiculous, I’ve never reacted like that in my life. It was legit though, the stupid thing started crawling on my skirt. Hubs to the rescue. :)
Hey dear! Awesome job on rocking out on the run! I am so proud of you :)
I am nervous to run race, I haven’t overcome that fear yet, but I hope to soon!
For a half marathon, I can totally see running the full distance beforehand–but if you don’t regularly run 13+ miles, I’d make sure to do it around 10 days before (rather than a week beforehand) so you have a chance to fully recover and you can have fresh legs for the race.
**smiling**
I suggest you rent a couple of the Anaconda and Anacondas movies (there are four of them in the series, now out on DVD). Once you see the 30-foot snakes gobbling people up on the DVDs, the little ones out of the trail will seem less threatening. Call it de-sensitization training, or something. Then again, you seem to be doing just fine, as is. An occasional shriek, about something in life, is permitted.
I hate snakes, but hiking sounds wonderful!
I’m doing a half marathon next year, so can’t wait to see what you do, but I would do the 13 miles beforehand, just to accomplish it and know you can do it, but still have enough rest time! Good luck!
I ran the full marathon distance before my marathon (with the Jeff Galloway method (http://www.amazon.com/Marathon-You-Can-Jeff-Galloway/dp/0936070250) you do that), and I actually ended up with a hip injury that lasted for over a year! I know that is a bit different, but I do think that it’s unnecessary to run the full distance beforehand. Many people run full marathons with only 16 miles as their longest run under their belt! Also, like others have said, it’s better to run the full distance with more time before the race. For marathons, a lot of people recommend your full distance is about a month in advance (though again, marathons are slightly different). Great job on your training!
First of all, congrats on the 11 miles. That’s amazing! If I were you, I would stick to your training plan. You’re right, 1 mile won’t make that much of a difference anyway. I would wait for race day to complete the 13.1 miles…it will be that much more memorable!
Snakes!UGGH!Quite a theme.hehe…
hey angela…. my race is only 10 days away!! yikes!! :) my last 3 weeks of long runs were 10, 13, 10… so i did the full distance about 3 weeks before the race, but that was just because i really wanted to KNOW for myself that i could do it. but i think 12 would be sufficient too. my problem is i don’t know how much/little to taper for this weekend (the week before the race). i thought i remembered hearing somewhere that half the distance of the race was good for the week before, so that would be about 6-7, but i’m not sure if that’s too little? i guess i will just see how i feel. i want to make sure to give my legs rest though so they can start storing up some energy! it’s too bad i can’t get any of your globars down here in the US yet so that i can store up lots of carbs for my run! hehe
hey Angela,
I have the exact same problem with snakes, in fact the same thing happened to me this weekend while hiking with my boyfriend, except it was the tiniest little baby snake right under my feet! and I still let out a scream. I just lose it when I see one…lol….and then of course I feel so silly after, dunno what it is but I decided that my problem with them might be due to the lack of legs (I like lizards) :)