Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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Can’t Believe It Worked!
So back a few posts ago I showed how I had messed up on the blanket I am knitting for a couple friends who got married. I had missed a cable and was fraught on what to do. I decided to follow the good advice and instructions by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee on her Yarn Harlot blog. I quickly discovered that I had to drop back more than the 5 offending stitches but the whole center panel! *Gasp of terror!*
So, I dropped and managed to pick up all the correct stitches. (I did some of this on the commuter rail where a lovely Irish gentleman that works for the New England Aquarium commented on how beautiful my work was and that it must be hard to do in dark colors compared to his sister that has won awards at home but usually knits in white.) So this is what I ended up with:
Deep breath looking at all those dropped rows
However, once I finally had all the stitches picked up from the same correct row, and once I figured out which row I was on, it really wasn’t so bad. I knit it back up over a couple of sittings so as not to get too tired and make another mistake. (Oh the horror!) and finally made it back to where I started on Saturday night while playing a role playing game with some friends that cutie is running. (Insert nerd/geek jokes at will.) I am pretty sure this again makes me my own superhero. (FYI that superhero is always either early or 80’s female empowerment Wonder Woman)
And now I’ve continued along, good as new, and have even now added the 4th ball of yarn. I think it looks pretty darn good, and I may have lost 2 weeks but I probably didn’t loose reknitting about 2400 stitches! At this point it would be fair to say I have knit about 18,200 if you don’t include mistake fixing! Whoa!
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I Am My Own Superhero
A while back I decided to signup to run an all women’s half marathon. At the time I figured that since I was already training to run a 5K and I was interested in training to run longer distances that it would be the perfect opportunity to push myself.
Training for the 5K went well, as did the race back in late September. From there I planned on having just over a month from being ready for a 3 mile race to a 13 mile race. I figured that 5 weeks would let me get up from running 4 to at 10 miles at a good clip and would be able to then do the whole thing if I paced myself. Especially since all I wanted to do was finish.
Isn’t it interesting how things hardly ever go quite as planned?
Between the end of September and yesterday I managed to get 2 different bugs. The first one left me just utterly exhausted for several days. The shortly after that got better I got a terrible cold that kept me home on the couch or coughing for some time. So while I ran several more times in the end of September (for ultimate), I ran not at all in October until our last ultimate tournament on Halloween.
If you’re trying to figure out the numbers here folks, it means I did 1 day of running in the month before my first half marathon and previously had only been running up to 4 miles. As you can imagine, yesterday was interesting.
So what happened yesterday? I completed my first ever half marathon. That’s right, 13.1 miles from start to end. Not only that, it is the longest distance I have ever run. (And for full disclosure, I did not run the whole race. There was walking, especially up some beastly hills and towards the end. However no full mile between mile markers was walked at any time.) The race was in lovely coastal York, ME on yesterday’s beautiful, warm, sunny, and slightly breezy day. I miraculously finished the whole thing in under 3 hours! I did it in 2 hours and 55 minutes (and 58 seconds). At times I felt very much like giving up and just laying in a stranger’s yard until my guy came and found me, but I did not. (Miles 10-13 were especially hard, and 11 & 12 were torture.) Nor did I cry. Nor did I get mad at myself. (Nor did I figure out how to drink a cup of water while running without getting all of it up my nose. Stopping for water was the way to go!) Heck, I even enjoyed myself for most of it! And while I maybe did not pace as well as I could have, and perhaps could have run a little more here and there, I crossed the finish line running (albeit very very slowly)!
So yesterday in the car on the way home I said to my handsome fella that I felt simultaneously like a superhero and the lamest person alive. I felt like a superhero because I did it and lame because I always feels bad when I finish so far behind everyone else that there is no pack, or sign of a pack, or hardly anyone at all. Today, after I figured out my average pace was a 13.18 mile I was convinced of my own superhero status. Who cares if I came in towards the very end of the pack. Heck, who cares if I had come in last, I did it! (and boy oh boy do I have the aching body to prove it!)
Next time, however, I will definitely train. (Note how I already know there will be a next time. Nicole was right.)
