Turkey Trot 5k

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

This year Vince and I signed up to do the local FishHawk 5k Turkey Trot.  I had a personal best time I wanted to beat: 27:55.

They gave everyone a sweat-wicking athletic shirt with the above logo in the above color.  I love it!

 

I had been ramping up my jogging over the last month and even committed to running right after work, around work.  I was feeling good!  My heart rate monitor finally died (the watch part must have gotten damp and the digital display was fading) and so I had to improvise by using the stopwatch feature on my phone and wrap my phone with paper towels and tuck into my compression short's waistband.  Those shorts are so tight, the phone did not even move while in there!  While all this jogging was going on, I could not beat my personal best pace, so I really had no clue how I was going to do at the race.

 

In Florida, Thanksgiving morning was the coldest day we've had since February!  It was 37 degrees when we woke up at 6am.  Figures, and we are going to be running and NOT staying home under the covers or on the couch with a hot cup of tea. 

 

I know, I know, the rest of the country was probably experiencing colder weather, but this is my blog and I will complain if I want to!

We warmed up by jogging around the parking area and doing some crossfit exercises such as high knees, walking lunges and jumping jacks.  We each brought a long-sleeved shirt to wear until we started.  I brought my 5k Shrug, remember that one??  Basically it was a long-sleeved t-shirt that I cut into a shrug-like garment to wear to keep arms warm but can easily be taken off and tied around the waist.  Vince brought a long-sleeved t-shirt, one that we got at last year's Turkey Trot in Mass, when we visited my sis. 

 

Vince was not going to wear it (the cold does not bother him much), and my ears were already freezing and I knew from past experience, my ears would be hurting with wind burn later if I ran with them unprotected (the cold took us by surprise and we did not properly prepare ourselves).  So I rolled up Vince's t-shirt and kept the arms out and used it as an ear warmer, tied behind my neck.  Hey, it worked!  I ran 1/3 of the race that way.  Then it warmed up a bit and was not so bad.

Speaking of being cold, my sister did her annual turkey trot in Mass, the 5 miler, and it was in the 20's!  She was better prepared for it, for sure.  Here is her and her dog Gonzo, warming up before the race in the car:

Gonzo does not seemed impressed.  He does not like his picture taken!

 

Vince and I had our best times at our race.  It was a chipped-timed race, meaning that they can electronically take your personal start and finish times when you run over a mat that has receivers in it.  Our chip was on our bib (the paper that has your race number), which was something I has not seen before.  They do this because it could take you 30sec + to actually cross over the start line due to the large number of runners participating. 

 

I felt good during the race, but the last mile or so, I started getting a side stitch.  I imagine it was from breathing the cold air, not breathing properly or whatever.  I was running with people who were pretty much going at my pace and I could not really pass them.  I was having a hard time with the drive to pass, because my toes were cold and legs did not want to move any faster. 

 

I usually pick one person to follow and keep pace with throughout the race (keeps you occupied) and I chose this one gal who reminded me of my sister: shorter, short hair, wide strong shoulders and was running with a mission.  Yeah, at the half-way point where we would turn to come back, she took off like a dart!  I lost her.  Damn it!  Oh well, I was on my own after that.

 

I got to the final turn and then it was the homestretch.  I always get a burst of energy and sprint the last little bit.  I started to increase my pace and I saw the clock: 27:10...I was like, "Holy [crap] I could do this!" and I sprinted like no other.  I made it at 27:20!! Whoo-hoo!

 

Vince then looked at the standings on the Friday after and saw our chip-times: 27:05.  OMG, I don't know how I pulled that off!  That is seriously cutting over 30 secs/mile off my time.

 

Here are some of the race stats:

• Chip Time: 27:05
• Overall Time: 27:20
• Came in runner 399 out of over 1700 participants
• In age group, 35-39, I was 15 out of 121
• In age group, the winner was 38 years old and her time was 22:31

Yea, so I won't be taking home any trophy's or medals, but I am still proud of myself!

Kathy's Cardi Conversions

Way back when, like last year, my sister gave me a bunch of sweaters to convert into cardigans.  She saw my post, Unbiased Cardi, and wanted some!  Well...let's just say I have been sitting on them...not making them into cardis.  Ugh, I know, I'm a procrastinator.

When my sister came down, one of the days we finally worked on those sweater conversions.  The first one was a polo-neck style:

Before

We cut this one up the middle, sewed the front band towards the inside and sewed a hem up each side.  Here is Kathy modeling:

After

Next, we took a cabled crew neck:

Before

We cut it up the front and cut the sleeves down a bit.  The sides were hemmed.  Here is her modeling that one too:

So, for the last one, we did something very different.  Well, not so different that we did not cut it up the front, but different enough.  Here is the before:

Before

This one was a cashmere turtleneck.  We cut it up the front, but at a slight angle, cutting right through the turtleneck.

Angle Cutting - In Action

Then, we took some yarn that I used for the Fuzzy Wuzzy hat and scarf set last Christmas and crocheted it on the edge.  Huh?  Yes, we did a mixed media project!!

Just Poke It Through

We took a steel crochet hook and poked it through, grabbed the yarn and pulled it through.  This part Kathy did, I was working on the other cardi conversions.  She did a single crochet around the whole edge, then crocheted double crochets for two rows.  Wait until you see it...pretty neat...

After

We looked through my button jar and found a nice Celtic silver button to cinch it closed.  I'm proud of her!  Here are a few more pics of it:

Close-Up

Ever After

I can say we had a good 'ole crafting time with her sweaters.  They all got a new lease on life when Old Man Winter hits Mass again this year.  Kind of funny to see her wearing a sweater next to a cactus in the month of June.

Let me know if anyone else has done their own "cardi conversions"!

Cabled Cardi KAL - Part 1

A KAL is short for Knit-Along.  A Knit-Along is when two or more people knit the same thing at the same time and help each other and are generally there for companionship  and support during the project.

These KALs are often done online in large groups or at knit/yarn shops.  My sister and I will be doing our own KAL and I will be blogging our progress.  We will go at my pace, or rather, I will blog our progress as I progress.  I'm a lot slower than she.  My sister's name is Kathy, so I will just be referring to her as Kathy throughout these posts.

Kathy chose a cabled cardigan from knitty.com called Mr Greenjeans.  Here is a pic from knitty:

Picture from knitty.com

It is a one-button cabled cardigan with raglan sleeves.  It is worked from the back of the neck, down, then the sleeves are picked up at the raglan armhole and then the sleeves are knit in the round (no seams) to the cabled cuffs. Then stitches are picked up along the front and neck edge and a ribbing is knit.

Ok, not too bad.  The experience level is "Tangy" per knitty, and that means, intermediate. I never let the experience level stop me from doing a project.  The techniques needed for this cardi are basics of any raglan pullover.  Should be no problem.

The yarn we are using is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (100% pure virgin wool).  I am using Natural and Kathy is using Birch Tweed (78% pure virgin wool, 13% acrylic, 9% nylon).

Natural

Birch Tweed

Kathy mentioned to me that she was going to use Fisherman's Wool and I said, "Hey, I have a few skeins of that in Natural already.  I was going to knit you an Irish Cable sweater one time, remember?  I guess your not getting that Irish Cable sweater!"  Yeah, she figured she wasn't getting one, since I've had this yarn since before Ames closed in Raynham, MA (~the year 2000-ish).  Still has the Ames price tag on it: $5.00 on clearance.  What a steal because it is about $12.99 for an 8 oz skein now.

We are using size 8 circulars.  The pattern instructs to change to 7's when you cable.  We are going to stick to 8's because the cables tend to be tighter anyway, so going down a needle size will only scrunch them up further.  

First the cast-on is done and we get an inch or so into it:

Nancy's Start

Nancy's Close-up

Kathy's Start

Kathy's Close-up

So, we are off and running.  Kathy is already way ahead of me.  It was snowing in MA when she was knitting, so she sat and literally knitted all afternoon on one weekend.  I, on the other hand, not so much.

So, check in every once and a while to see how we are doing on the Cabled Cardi KAL!

Related Posts

• Cabled Cardi - Part 2

Ben Ice Cream Cozy

Yup, that's right:  I knitted an ice cream cozy.  Wait until you see it!  

Let me start from the beginning.  Last year, I got a Knitting Desk Calendar (2011) and in there was a pattern for ice cream cozies.  They fit a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, hugging the condensation, insulating, protecting your hands from the cold when you eat from the carton.  How awesome is that?!?!

Pic from the Knitting Desk Calendar

I knew I wanted to knit it.  At the time I was dieting and the thought of eating right out of a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream was undo-able, so I did not knit one right away (I was not going to use it while on the diet).  So, when I started thinking of who I was going to knit gifts for this Christmas, I thought, "Who can I knit the ice cream cozy for?  Someone must eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream!"  That's when I realized that I do, in fact, have a friend who eats this ice cream.  She even goes online to find what store is selling the exact flavor she is looking for.  This was a no-brainer.

Perfect!

Well, Christmas was sneaking up on me and I had not started it as of the beginning of December.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  I was on a roll and then was out with my knitting injury (see the Origami Sweater - Part 2 post).  I still have it and when I think about knitting, my elbow and arm will suddenly hurt.  Ridiculous!

I started it on December 13th, which was a Thursday and was done by Sunday.  So, not too bad.  Here are the details:

 

I used some stash yarn: Bernat Softee Baby (100% Acrylic), in Soft Peach (looks pink in real life) and Premier Yarn Everyday Soft Worsted (100% Acrylic) in Baby Yellow.  I have used the Bernat Softee Baby in a couple projects: I Heart Hats and Vivecita Beret.  The Premier Yarn, I used in my Cookie Swap 2012, Rapunzel braid.

The Softee Baby is a DK weight and the Premier Yarn is a worsted weight.  What does that mean?  That means that the DK is a thinner yarn than the worsted and I had to use 2 strands of the DK to 1 strand of the worsted.  That brought a challenge:  I had only one skein of yarn of each, so I had to ball up the DK yarn (the peach/pink) into 2 balls.

This gave me an excuse to use my ball winder.  I love that thing!

It was kind of a pain to wind it from a skein, but after a tangle or two, I had 2 balls of yarn to work with:

This way I can hold the 2 strands together without a huge mess on my hands by trying to use both ends of the skein (it would not have worked, I tried that way before I balled it up.  Trust me!)

So, this is knitted on double pointed needles (dpn).  The pattern calls for a size 10, but I knit loose, so I went down a needle size to a size 9.  I casted-on and was off.

It's always confusing to me when I cast-on to dpn's.  I always think that I am doing it wrong, but it works out somehow.  So, I have started it, as you see above.

This 2 color knitting is called stranding or simply colorwork.  This is where you carry the unused color behind in the work.  I'll show you in a pic, down below.  I worked in a ribbing pattern, so the cozy can be stretchy.  I worked from the top-down.

Here is a close-up of the rib pattern, where the color changes for the knit and the purl stitch.

This is what the stranding looks like.  This is a pic of the inside of the cozy.  This extra "layer" of yarn behind the stitches helps insulate it, so your hand will not get cold from holding it.

Unfortunately, I completed it and then realized that it was a bit too long and looked like a sock, not a cozy.  I had to rip out about 4 rounds of the colorwork.  Oh well, I fixed it in no time.

That was an awful lot of yarn for 4 rounds.  I put the dpn's back into the live stitches and finished it off again.

Vince and I took one for the team...the Anything-for-the-Christmas-Gifts Team.  We bought a pint of Phish Food (love that one, and it is Gluten Free) and tried the cozy on it.  It fit!!!!  So, we ate the ice cream while watching a DVR'd episode of Dancing with the Stars.  I washed out the carton and gave the gift, with the cozy on the empty Ben & Jerry's pint.  I put a gift card for the local supermarket in it, so she can buy a pint for her to try the cozy out on.  I'm not that cruel, that I would completely tease her with no ice cream!

There is also a Jerry ice cream cozy that I will knit at some point.  I gave her an IOU for that one.  I do not have any more stash yarn that fits the bill for this project, so I will buy some the next time I'm out at Joann's.

What do you think?  Is this a fab gift or what?!?

Whitin Five Road Race

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am still up in Mass visiting my sister for Thanksgiving.  I leave on Monday.  In the meantime, we ran a road race on Thanksgiving.  My sister, Vince and I ran the 24th Annual Whitin Five Mile Road Race in Whitinsville, MA.

It was freezing, literally.  It was between 35-40 degrees out.  I had did a practice 3 mile run the Sunday before Thanksgiving and I got a serious side cramp that was painful.  I walked about a quarter mile home, then when it subsided, I jogged the rest of the way.  In sum: it was a horrible training experience.

Then my sister, Kathy and I ran a 5 mile loop in her neighborhood on Tuesday, which went very well.  I think it was because I did my stretching and deep breathing outside, in the cold, to acclimate my body and lungs.  It must've worked.

So, Thanksgiving day came and we got all suited up in some cold-weather exercise clothing and went out to the race.

My goal was to run the 5 mile race in 45 minutes or less.  Vince did it in just over 41 minutes and Kathy did it in just over 43 minutes.  I did it in just over 46 minutes.  I'm not upset about that, because it was cold and I did get a slight cramp at mile 3, but I'm not making up excuses!  I'm proud of my time.  It is just under a 9 and a half minute mile - That's better than many of my practice jogs at home!

Here is the preliminary time sheet posted after the race.  I came in at 504th place out of over 800 runners.

Once the race was run, we got some water and some coffee and was off to finish the Turkey Day lunch back at home.  It was fun, even though I complained about the cold, it was a great time!

Thank you, Kathy!!!  Love you for making me do these things!!