On Saturday, we trooped up to Springfield, got lost, parked, got lost, found the building, got lost, found the race (Springfield is strangely confusing!), picked up Kevin's packet, and waited. Normally, the stairs are an emergency exit, so the start was essentially in a closet:
The climbers started in bib number order, one at a time, a minute apart. Kevin was number 12, so he started at 10:12.
I took this picture, then went back out into the lobby to wait. Kevin wasn't sure how long the climb would take, or how long it would take for him to catch his breath and get into the elevator (they don't climb back down--going downstairs is bad for your knees). I thought it might be 10 or 15 minutes till he got back, so I found a corner, put in my iPod, got out my knitting, knit less than a needle's worth of stitches (naturally, I was working on a sock).... and looked up to see Kevin coming out into the lobby too.
It turns out that 2 flights = 1 floor, so the climb was only half as long as he thought!
The whole climb took 3 minutes, 25 seconds (which was 7th out of 130-ish, as it turned out)! Definitely a sprint!! (That's about how long it would take Kevin to run between 1/2 and 3/4 miles, on a flat surface.)
Once we'd gotten as far as Springfield, we naturally went on to Northampton--where I unexpectedly bought enough Classic Elite Bamboo (Bam Boo?) for a summery sweater, a skein of sock yarn (of course), a shawl stick, and a pair of shoes (Danskos--the ones called Sally). Usually, I agonize about the effects of such purchases on my yarn mileage, but on Friday I got 5 skeins of sock yarn (4 for me, 1 for a design project) in the mail from Schaefer, so I apparently figured the damage was done already. (I have no such explanation for my Dansko addiction... except that they're so comfy and so cute! And I've decided they match everything else in my wardrobe.)
(Note to self: use some of your supposed free time to take pictures!)
3 comments:
Talk about a win-win outing. looking forward to seeing you, your new shoes & the latest socks at SnB one of these days (I don't know about you but I haven't been in weeks).
Hmmm ... I'm coming in at the tail end of the story of the climb. Good thing I comprehend insanity. :) Your yarn acquisitions sound lovely. I confess - bamboo worries me. I'd heard it's flammable, so a couple of us did a small flammability test with first wool, then angora (both of them just smoldered a bit), then bamboo. We put them individually on a hot stove burner (electric) and watched. The bamboo did nothing at first, no smolder just sitting there, but suddenly flashed into full out flames. I don't know what would happen with it in a blend of wool or angora.
That looks funny. But I'm very impressed with what Kevin did!!! So awesome!
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