What we know . . .

There are a couple of things we know this week that we didn't know before:

• There are way too many brands of gel-type energy supplements (but,
  
• Gu is decidedly better than Power Gel (but, there isn't a difference after you've been running for a while and need some more energy)
• The roller things (cylinders about 8 inches in diameter and 3 feet long) you use on your leg muscles are more painful that a deep tissue massage (but, they do actually work)
• Running for 2 hours is hard (but, it feels great to have done it)

This week has not been as intense as last. Tuesday's workout was a little easier and this Saturday is only 1hr and 45mins. It is cool to remember back to some of our first long runs that were 45 and 50mins - we could barely imagine having to run for 1.5 or 2 hours. Now, running for 1.75 hours seems almost easy (almost).

We'll see if we are still saying that on Saturday at 8:45am (the run starts at 7).

SF here we come!

Okay, so maybe this weekend is just an emulation run, but 2 hours with hills sounds pretty intense to us. We found out the "master plan" for our training: we have previously been focusing on building our base fitness, this month we are going to work on building speed, and next we move onto lots of hills (even more than our emulation run, apparently).

This week's track workout on Tuesday was hard. Although, Pam assures Sarah, not as hard as last week (even with Pam's wicked blisters on her heals). After our warm-up we did 400 fast followed by 400 easy, 800 fast followed by 400 easy, 1200 fast followed by 400 easy, and then another 800 fast followed by 1200 warm-down. Sarah says she takes after her little brother Aaron and likes the sprint-style track workouts. Pam says she'll take the long Saturday morning runs over track anytime.

Well, we should probably get back to drinking water to stay hydrated, trying various types of energy supplements (e.g., Gu, Power Gel), submitting our abstracts for an annual social psychology conference, and reading ridiculous amounts to study for generals (our test that is coming up in Sept.)!

Wish us luck on Saturday . . .

Thank you

First, thanks to everyone who has been reading our blog and donating on our websites. We can't tell you how grateful we are for your support.
This weekend was our 1.5 hour run. We started out at Camino Real marketplace (where Costco is) and ran down by Pam's house, through campus, and down the bike path past Goleta Beach. It wasn't so bad, particularly in contrast to last week's run. The 15K started at 8am, while our long Saturday workouts start at 7. It's amazing how much cooler it is just starting a bit earlier. After the run, we had a nutrition lesson where they taught us all about what we should be eating and drinking in preparation for running, and how to carbo load in the week before the marathon.
Sunday is cross-training day. Usually we just go to the gym, but this week I, Pam, am puppy-sitting while our advisor is on vacation, so Jeff and I decided to take Hobbes for a long hike up in the mountains . We went up the west fork of the Cold Spring trail, and it was really beautiful, but really hot. The poor dog kept running ahead to find a patch of shade (or a bush) to hide in.
Since I didn't have any good pictures from the race, I'm posting a picture we took yesterday. This was taken at the top of the trail, looking down over Santa Barbara.

From Sarah in Mountain View, CA

Like Pam mentioned, I'm on vacation right now. Well, I'm in between vacations actually and just working from the Bay Area for a few days. I've been keeping up on the running while I've been gone. In fact, one of Marc's friends who was in New Hampshire is training for a marathon too, so he helped keep me motivated while we were there. I've bumped up my long run this week to tomorrow (Thursday) instead of Saturday. We are supposed to run for 1.5 hrs, which should be around 11 miles. Hopefully I can find a good running path near Marc's place, and not hit any dead ends or get lost . . . wish me luck.

I found another picture from the 15k last week. This one is from much earlier in the race. It is also of me and "Pam." (Really this is one of the other people doing Team in Training - Javier - we are about the same speed, so we do our long runs together.)

Thanks so much to everyone that has taken the time to check these posts and write comments!

Tired

So, it's Pam, doing a solo update. Sarah is still on her NH/Catalina trip, so I've been doing the team workouts without her.
Sarah- you should be happy that you missed last night's track practice. It was pretty brutal. I'm sure hanging out in the Manchester airport wasn't the greatest either, but your legs probably aren't in as much pain this morning as mine are. They had us do the normal warm up (1.5 miles with sprints on the last four straightaways) and then played this mean game where they blew a whistle to determine how fast we had to run. If they blew it once, we went at an easy pace, 2 whistles was marathon pace, 3 was faster, and 4 was pretty much sprinting. We only did it for about 20 minutes, but there were some pretty long 4-whistle intervals in there.
Apparently the lesson was to not tire ourselves out at the beginning, because it's hard to recover after going too fast. I think I have learned that lesson well.
Maybe once Sarah gets home I'll get my own whistle and make her do some drills, so she can properly learn the lesson as well. :)

First picture from yesterday.

Sarah at kilometer 12.

I stole this from sbrunning.

Yay for update #2!

Since we last posted, we had our 1 1/4 hour run. We started at East beach and ran past the across the highway, and into Monticeto. Sarah went more than 9 miles in that time, and Pam came within sight of the 2nd water stop.

We also upped our training to 6-days a week, by adding a Monday 30 minute run. Tonight is a track workout, and the tomorrow we are both running the Semana Nautica race, which Jeff's hairstylist tells us is a quite old and very famous race. You can learn about it here: http://semananautica.bitwizedevelopment.com/ It's about 9.3 miles, and we're doing it in place of the 90 minute run that would otherwise come this Saturday. While it will be nice to get the long run out of the way, neither of us is that excited to be up at 6:30 on the 4th of July.

Wish us luck in our race, and have happy 4ths!