Ran with Grace

After two days of nonstop (though much needed) rain down here in the desert, the clouds rolled out, the winds calmed and the sun returned - just in time for the Iron Girl race around Tempe Towne Lake. Originally, I had planned on running the 10 mi, however injuries earlier this year that kept me benched, general life craziness and my lack of consistent training convinced me to scale back down to the 5k instead. We'll see if the photo company got any good shots once they upload them.

Results: 460/1076 overall, 71/141 for my age division. It's fair to say I couldn't possibly be more middle in the middle of the pack ;)

Chip Time: 39:54 with a pace of 12:51 - about what I would expect, especially considering the inconsistent training on my part.

Observations from this race: My shoes are no longer pristine from limited running on dry pavement and mostly treadmill miles - I splashed through a muddy puddle within the first quarter mile of the race...this race, while fun, has a lot of new racers - resulting in lots of dodging of slower folk, walkers, and individuals going from run to walk without moving to the side. Getting drinks from aid stations was an experience too. There is no shame in wogging - It probably saved me from damaging myself or keeling over from over exertion - and I was able to kick things into a sprint in the home stretch. Oddly enough, I find myself sore and stiff all over today, even my abs hurt - as if I did lots and lots of crunches, which I most certainly did not...this didn't happen last year, and it's never happened on training runs. Hopefully the kinks will work themselves out as the day progresses.

As for knitting, I'm thinking I need a new hat. I'm looking at the Urban Homesteader hat from Neither Hip nor Funky - I wear my hair in pigtails or pony tails and this hat has little flaps that can be opened to accommodate any or none :) I have a partial skein of aeval, but I'm not sure if I have quite enough yardage...so I'm searching the stash to make a final decision on yarn. This should be one quick knit, so hopefully I'll have at least one more FO before the year is out!