Eagleman 70.3 is behind me.
To make a long story short, I felt great on the swim, fine on the bike, and the run was a brutal slog through the sixth level of hell. Even with temperatures relatively mild in the low 80s, the sun beating down on me for 13 miles was a killer. And although helpful, it ain’t much fun trying to run with cups of ice bouncing around in your sports bra. In the end, I crossed the finish line after 6 hrs, 10 min, and 50 sec of swim, bike, run, which was 41 minutes faster than 2012, so no complaints. I think Mike and I are pretty much done with Eagleman though. There are only so many times you can fork over money to race in misery before you start to come to your senses.
And now looming ahead is only the big bad of Ironman Mont Tremblant. Nine very short weeks away. I am both super excited and scared out of my mind. I've come a really long way in the last five months but there's still pretty far to go before I'll be ready to try to cover 140.6 miles. Distance starting building this week, and 73 miles on the bike and 16.5 of running will take a pretty big chunk out of the weekend. Vacuuming, laundry, walking dogs, and spending an hour tonight making stuffed cabbage (yeah, weird impulse for June cooking, no explanation) and there is little time left to relax with knitting.
So, in honor of big epic undertakings (and the fact that I've barely worked on any knitting in the past week), I decided it was finally time to update my progress on the handspun afghan. To give some background, I started this project in 2011. Over the years, I bought 15 4oz braids of blue faced leicester fiber, spun a worsted 2-ply yarn, and knit each skein into a log cabin square. Sometime last year I finished knitting the last square.
I was so excited about finishing the squares that I shoved them in a drawer and didn't think about them for months. In March, I finally dug them out, bought black yarn, and started knitting. A couple months and a whole lotta garter stitch later:
All the squares are assembled. Only the outer borders are left. I'm so close and yet there is still a good bit of knitting to go. Knitting that I have no intention of touching for months. The blanket weighs a metric crapton and there is no way I'm going to sit with the whole thing on my lap to knit the borders until there is frost outside. Since it's not even summer yet, that's going to be awhile. Thank goodness I have hours of bike training to keep me busy. To be continued...maybe in October...
To make a long story short, I felt great on the swim, fine on the bike, and the run was a brutal slog through the sixth level of hell. Even with temperatures relatively mild in the low 80s, the sun beating down on me for 13 miles was a killer. And although helpful, it ain’t much fun trying to run with cups of ice bouncing around in your sports bra. In the end, I crossed the finish line after 6 hrs, 10 min, and 50 sec of swim, bike, run, which was 41 minutes faster than 2012, so no complaints. I think Mike and I are pretty much done with Eagleman though. There are only so many times you can fork over money to race in misery before you start to come to your senses.
And now looming ahead is only the big bad of Ironman Mont Tremblant. Nine very short weeks away. I am both super excited and scared out of my mind. I've come a really long way in the last five months but there's still pretty far to go before I'll be ready to try to cover 140.6 miles. Distance starting building this week, and 73 miles on the bike and 16.5 of running will take a pretty big chunk out of the weekend. Vacuuming, laundry, walking dogs, and spending an hour tonight making stuffed cabbage (yeah, weird impulse for June cooking, no explanation) and there is little time left to relax with knitting.
So, in honor of big epic undertakings (and the fact that I've barely worked on any knitting in the past week), I decided it was finally time to update my progress on the handspun afghan. To give some background, I started this project in 2011. Over the years, I bought 15 4oz braids of blue faced leicester fiber, spun a worsted 2-ply yarn, and knit each skein into a log cabin square. Sometime last year I finished knitting the last square.
I was so excited about finishing the squares that I shoved them in a drawer and didn't think about them for months. In March, I finally dug them out, bought black yarn, and started knitting. A couple months and a whole lotta garter stitch later:
All the squares are assembled. Only the outer borders are left. I'm so close and yet there is still a good bit of knitting to go. Knitting that I have no intention of touching for months. The blanket weighs a metric crapton and there is no way I'm going to sit with the whole thing on my lap to knit the borders until there is frost outside. Since it's not even summer yet, that's going to be awhile. Thank goodness I have hours of bike training to keep me busy. To be continued...maybe in October...
Your blanket is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your race -- I can't even imagine accomplishing that. I feel happy when I manage to do my 2.5 mile run in the morning. ;)