No Marathon For Me!

I've had quite a few people ask me if I'm running the Twin Cities Marathon this weekend. It's a fair question, since this will be the first time in five years that I am not running the Marathon. Last year, I got a message loud and clear from my knees -- no more marathoning! At least not for a couple years . . .

Turns out it was a blessing in disguise, since I've got a moderately bad cold this weekend, I would be no good running tomorrow even if I wanted to.

In lieu of running the marathon, I'm spending the weekend knitting vegetables (and a tomato, a fruit).

Oh for cute take two

Seriously, who doesn't love a knitted earthworm?

Obama!

What better way to spend a Saturday than getting up early, waiting in line for about . . . 5 hours . . and then seeing our 44th President?!

We really did have a good time; the crowd was happy and excited, thus the time passed very quickly. Since I haven't had the opportunity to see a President live (save for the time in 4th grade when we saw Ronald Reagan's wave to people as his car drove down the street) -- and since I'm a big fan of Mr. Obama's, I decided it was worth the effort.

The zoom on this camera was amazing -- it looks like I was a lot closer than I really was. Needless to say, President Obama carried his message well; he did a great job of exciting the crowd -- we were all fired up and ready to go!

As I mentioned before, since I did have about 5 hours to wait, I took the time to finish my sweater. The security detail didn't even bat an eye at my needles. Apparently my pointy, medal sticks weren't threatening enough.

Oh for cute.

St. Paul Tri 2009

Today was the St. Paul Tri! I completed the half mile swim, 20k bike, and 5k run in 1:38:22. Given the nice day, and my brother as support staff, I couldn't ask for much more. My only gripe: I am not a fan of those friends/family members of athletes that hover over their friend's/family member's bikes and disallow anyone to park next to them in the transition area. I encountered two rejections from being able to park my bike at an area. Sorry folks, we're all in this together, and if there isn't much space left for bike-parking, you gotta move over.

Can't ask for much more than a matching swim cap and swim suit.

The swim is over!

It felt like my own personal Tour de France, except much much less gruelling.

Thanks Jay, for taking pictures and helping me haul *my* bike. Thanks Kaarin, for letting me use your bike, it's a nice ride.

Gearing up for the State Fair!

It's State Fair entry time again! This year, I'll have four entries, once of which is the shawl pictured here. It turned out much bigger than anticipated -- about five feet wide. It's pretty cozy too, meaning I may not get to wear it until late fall.

If you think it looks soft, it is -- alpaca.

I found this fantastic shawl pattern in Vogue Knitting, a new favorite pattern-placed of mine.

Weekend Cowler

I love weekend projects. Especially on the heels of big projects (more info coming on those projects).

Here is my Weekend Cowler, just in time for fall (at least it feels like it these days!). Yes, it may technically be a cowl, but explaining and re-explaining the technical name to Erica, we decided a much better name is really a cowler.

I'm particularly proud of the tubular cast-on and Kitchener stitch cast-off -- the later requiring large amounts of concentration.