Monday, April 16, 2007

Sporty Weekend

(Kate, I finally remembered to look up the name of the pattern! The one in the close-ups is called Daintier Chevron, from the second treasury.)

I'm still knitting away on the Hourglass-ish sweater. But something odd seems to be happening: I cast on the same number of stitches for these sleeves as I did for the first one, and they're turning out the same size (I subscribe to the sleeve=gauge swatch school of swatching) I deduced that that meant that the gauge was the same as the original, so I cast on the same number of stitches for the body as I did before (not the same number as in the original pattern, since I'd ripped and reknit the body with fewer stitches), and it's turning out slightly smaller. Not smaller enough that it won't fit, but smaller enough that it's a little weird. Assuming I'm not suddenly knitting tighter, I guess it's just that my gauge was very slightly off, and I needed a bigger piece to really notice... but there's no chance I would have worked a swatch that was bigger than my sleeve (the sleeves are bell shaped, so the cuffs are pretty big), so I'm not going to take this as a sign that I should stop using sleeves as swatches.

But the big activity of the weekend was working out. We didn't do the long run during the week, and we were determined to finally bike outside... but Sunday was forecast to be rainy and windy form the Nor'easter. So we ran 13 miles Saturday morning, and biked for an hour and 20 minutes Saturday afternoon. It wasn't that bad at the time--once the long runs get up to 15 miles or so, you start alternating "short" and long weeks... probably to trick you into thinking "Yay! We only have to run 13 miles today!" instead of "Curses! We have to run 13 miles today?!??" and for some reason that kind of thinking convinces me completely. And biking uses different muscles than running (which makes transitions in triathlons hard, but which works just fine if you have lunch and a nap between one activity and the next). But my legs were suddenly exhausted in the middle of yoga on Sunday. I may have the wrong attitude towards yoga, because what I really wanted at the time (as I suddenly switched to doing the modified, easier version of the poses) was a t-shirt that explained that I was doing the easier poses because I worked out so much the day before. Perhaps I should focus more on yoga being non-competitive?

We basically ran the course of the New Haven Road Race, plus the few blocks it took to get from our house to the course--although we started about mile 7 of the actual race, since that's where it's closest to our house. What's nice about that is that as we were getting close to our finish line, it felt like we should have had to run back to the actual finish line, but were somehow getting to stop early. What's less nice is that starting there meant the hill that's usually at mile 2 was between mile 6 and 7. And hills make me whine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed at your modifications to Otis. I don't think I'd have the courage to do that, at least not yet.

I'm laughing at your comment "only 13 miles." Isn't that the truth?!

Thank you also for supporting our charity ride. I wanted to send you a private email to thank you, but I didn't have your address. It is so kind of you to do that. :)

jennsquared said...

you guys are hardcore!!! 13 miles?!?! I don't think I can ever do that...

I love your modification of Otis. It looks very nice!