9 Weeks of Training...Check!

We're another week closer to our marathon and one week past the half way point. We have 7 more weeks to go, so plenty more long runs around the corner, but I feel like the hard part is over. We've run as far as we're going to run in our training, so the unknown element isn't there anymore. We still have to run 20 miles two more times, but at least we've done it once and we know we can make it! We ran 16 miles today and it didn't seem too bad because we had already done it plus some! And I'm finding that I'm less sore afterwards too. In addition to the long runs, the tempo runs have been a challenge and continue to get faster. We've done two types of tempo runs. They are on Wednesdays in our schedule and have progressively gotten longer and faster. One of the run types has us doing one mile at a time basically sprinting with a half mile in between slow to recover. Those miles started at 7:09 pace and doing 3 of them and we build up to 7:00 and 4 or 5 of them. That's hard for me, but I haven't missed the pace yet. We haven't gotten down to 7 min yet though! For the other type of tempo run, we run the miles consecutively and at a fast pace, but not crazy. We started with 7:39 pace for 3 miles and we build up to 5 or 6 miles in the 7:20s. These are tough too, but do-able. Probably the other hardest part about these runs is that we have to do them on a Wednesday night, after work when we're tired and not really in the mood for fast running. They have definitely helped though and we've found that they've gotten easier as the weeks have gone on, just like the long runs have. So the training continues even though we're heading to Las Vegas next weekend. We're planning on doing another 16 miles next Saturday there and then eating some good food afterwards. Seven more weeks to go!

Rockin New Socks

These are one of the three new pairs of running socks Tony got me yesterday! I got him a pair of these Thorlo Experia running socks for Christmas and he brags about how great they are all the time. So I've been talking about wanting some for awhile, and lo and behold, the Sunday paper brought a coupon for Sports Authority and new socks are on my feet! I haven't cared much about "running socks" but now that we've been running these long distances its nice to have some socks that have some extra cushion. I wore them for the first time today and I'm really liking these socks. I had to work only a half day because we had conferences, so I made up my run from yesterday this afternoon. I'm so excited that spring is coming! It was 65 degrees and sunny today! I am loving this weather...so I hope it sticks around because I'm over the cold weather. I'm ready for short sleeves, shorts, and a tan!

Random Pics

We went to the Tulsa Zoo on Sunday. It was our first visit and the only reason I wanted to go was to see the polar bear. Polar bears are my favorite animals so I was pretty pumped. Unfortunately, I must have missed the news last May that the one remaining polar bear at the Tulsa Zoo died. Much to my dismay, the only polar bear we saw on Sunday was on this picture:



Here are a few more of our pics from the zoo:

Saturday Activities

We had a more balanced Saturday this week. Every 4 weeks we have a "recovery week" in our running where we don't have a super long run on Saturday. We ended up running 8 miles (we were only supposed to do 6) and the weather was awesome for running! It was in the low 50s and sunny. We actually wore shirts and shorts, which we haven't done in months now. We ran on the Creek turnpike path. For those of you that don't know, we live out by one of the turnpikes and they have a run/bike path that runs from a few miles from our house all the way to Jenks (where I work). It's probably 20+ miles of path. The downside is it's not very scenic and you have to run out and back, but it was a good alternative for this week since we didn't have as far to run. We did get to run along side some cows that live on some land beside the path. There were some babies that were pretty cute! Only in Oklahoma, I say!

After our nice run, we came back, took showers, and went to run some errands and go to some places that aren't open on Sundays (our normal day to go out and do things). We ate lunch at one of our favorite places from Texas, Lenny's sub shop. We were really looking forward to it because we love Lenny's! We had their food at the pool party/lunch thing at my parents' house before our wedding. The two things I like most from Lenny's are their cookies and lemonade. I say that because when we went to get lunch they had NEITHER! They had a "big day of catering" and Saturdays they clean our their lemonade maker and ovens. Like Tony said, if you're a business and you're open you should sell everything you offer on your menu. That would only make sense. Needless to say we were pretty disappointed. We still ate there and the sandwhiches were still good, but it didn't live up to our expectations to say the least.

After that we went to a running store called Fleet Feet to get some gels and Clif Shot Bloks for our runs coming up. There was a nice liquor store next door that we checked out and bought some wine. They had one of my favorites Saint M Riesling, and we picked up a Yellow Tail Australian wine to see if we liked that for our trip coming up. AND we found the cutest box of Shiner cans. We've never seen this before and thought they were really cute!


For dinner, we decided to try something new last night. We made turkey burgers, pasta salad, and baked potatoes. Everything was really good, but we needed to cook our potatoes a little longer. We also tried the Australian wine. During the afternoon we got a phone call that Tony's long time friend, Jacob, and his wife Mindy were in town and needed a place to stay. So they came over around 9 pm and we stayed up until midnight talking with them.

Andie and Alice just got back from their trip to Fayetteville this morning. We think we are going to go to the zoo this afternoon. So we'll post some pictures from that if we go.

Here's a picture of Alice in all her cuteness!

Last Week

As I said earlier, last week my sister Andie and her youngest Alice(13 months old) came to visit us for 10 days. Andie lives in Paris, so we don't get to see her and her family too often(usually once or twice a year). Beth and I would like to make it to Paris at least once a year to see them, but that's not always easy to make happen.

About 2 weeks before Andie came, Mary surprised us by buying a plane ticket to come to Tulsa for a few days when Andie was here to visit us all. We've known Mary since we were really young and don't get to see her often. The easiest way to put it is, Mary was once married to Tom who is a distant/non-existant relative of Andie and I. Luckily we still keep in touch with Mary and we're really glad she came to visit.

After picking Mary up from the airport, we all went on a tour of Tulsa. We showed them where I worked and where Beth worked and then ended with lunch at Smashburger which is a favorite of Beth's.

The next day Beth and I had to work so Mary and Andie hungout all day. That night for dinner, we had Hideaway Pizza. We couldn't let someone come visit and not introduce them to Hideaway Pizza. Mary left Tuesday afternoon. It was a short, but fun trip and we're really glad Mary came to visit. Here are a few pics from Mary's visit.

Stacy Update

Most people, but not everyone knows that Beth's sister is Stacy Lewis who plays on the LPGA Tour. I thought I'd give a quick update on what Stacy's been up to lately.

Last week, Stacy played in the first LPGA tournament of the season in Chonburi, Thailand. It was a good start to her season and she ended the four round tournament in 22nd place. Here's a pic of Stacy in Thailand.


From Thailand, Stacy flew to Singapore for the HSBC Women's Championship. Because of the 14 hour time difference between here and there, Stacy's teeing off in the late evening here which means we can wake up in the morning and see how Stacy played. Through 3 rounds, Stacy is currently in 42nd place. You can follow live scoring of any LPGA tournament at LPGAscoring.com.

Here's a pic of Stacy during her first round in Singapore.



From Singapore, Stacy will be heading to Australia for two different tournaments. We are looking forward to see how Stacy likes Australia since we will be going there in a few months.

Lately

Just when I say we've been slacking with the blog, we go another week without posting. My sister and her baby Alice got here last Saturday afternoon so we've been a little occupied between work and hanging out with them.

But let's start before they got here. Last Friday night we celebrated Beth's birthday. We went out to dinner at a place in Tulsa called Red Rock Canyon Cafe. It's kind of a sleek looking upscale casual restaurant that had been recommended by someone that I work with. We were not disappointed at all. Although it was a little on the pricey side, we will definitely be going back. I got meatloaf and Beth got rotisserie chicken. Both meals came with carrots and garlic mashed potatoes that were awesome!!! We started our meal with calimari that was different than anything we'd had before, but tasted great!

After dinner we went to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino just outside of Tulsa to meet up with a few teacher friends of Beth's. It wasn't fun. The casino itself is a combination of the new casino(Hard Rock) and the old casino(Cherokee Casino). The place smelled of smoke everywhere and the crowd left a lot to be desired. To sum it up, we won't be going back.



Saturday we got up to face out biggest running challenge yet.....20 miles. We knew that we needed to pick my sister up around 345 p.m. so we pretty much woke up and went out to do our run. After our 18 mile disaster, neither one of us was looking forward to adding 2 miles to our run. We decided before we started that we would slow our pace down just a little so we didn't feel like collapsing when we got done. Changing our pace just a little bit helped a ton. It took us 2 hours and 49 minutes to complete the 20 miles and we both felt great when we were done.

During the run, we took 2 packages of Clif ShotBloks with us, as well as the Clif electrolyte drink. Both came in really handy and gave us a great energy boost.

Today is an easy 6 mile run that we're both looking forward to. We made end up running 8 miles just to get a little extra distance, but 8 miles is nothing compared to 20 miles.