9 Time Ironman

My husband has incredible determination, especially when it comes to physical endeavors.  When he makes up his mind that he wants to do something, he makes it his top priority and goes for it.  Yesterday he just completed his 9th Ironman Triathlon.  Things were in doubt for a while.  He injured his shoulder while we work working on the basement repair.  A trip to the ortho doc and a shot of cortisone assured him that there wasn't any damage and brought relief to the inflammation.  He made the trip to Santa Rosa and decided that he was going to give it a try.  The kids and I weren't able to make the trip with him, so we watched throughout the day on-line.

In the wee hours of yesterday morning, he gathered with hundreds of like-minded folks and at 6:24 am PDT he started his 10th attempt at an Ironman Triathlon.

About an hour and a half later he emerged from the water.  I sighed a huge sigh of relief.  I was worried his shoulder was going to lock up on him while swimming.  And many bad things could occur if that had happened.

After he headed out on the bike, I went about my day taking my son to IKEA and going with one of my daughters to the Serbian Festival.  I got home just in time to see him finish up the bike and head out on the run.

The Ironman website has a decent athlete tracker so I was able to monitor his progress on the bike and run without a lot of worry.  It appeared that he hit the wall around mile 20 of the run.  His average pace slowed considerably.  With each checkpoint his estimated finishing time slipped.  Between miles 20 and 24.6 it has dropped from 13 minutes/mile to 19 minutes/mile.  The last 1.6 miles took him about 50 minutes.  As a long distance spectator it was getting to be a bit nerve-wracking.   Finally about 10:30 pm PDT he crossed the finish line.  It was a relief to see him in relatively good shape.

He completed his 9th Ironman.  There was one attempt a few years back where he had to drop out during the bike.  He mentioned this morning that this might have been his last.  Honestly, if it is I'll be happy.  I'm proud of him and want him to now focus on things that don't stress his body so much.

While he has been gone this week, I started working on some Christmas presents.  These are becoming a pair of footies for either my son or husband.  I originally thought they would go to one of my daughters, but after a test on my foot I realized they would be too big.  The colors are manly enough to go to either one.

I'm also working on a shawlette for a friend.  It is from one of the Curls books.

Drachenfels is coming along.  Still in the long Color C section.  If I commit to one ridge a day I should have this done by the end of August.

Now it is time to sign off.  Time of another cup of tea and a shower.

Need Yarn Anonymous

Hello, my name is Kathy and I have a yarn problem.  

It is all so pretty and hard to resist.  In any form.  My sister taught me how to spin. Of course, I then bought a wheel and several drop spindles and more fiber than I have time to work with.

Yesterday I learned how to dye.  I see another fiber related hobby in my future.  Not good for the bank account.

My friend Cindy and I took a dyeing workshop from Jeanne of Destination Yarn fame.  The workshop was hosted by YarnByrds at The Nest.  It was a very fun and interesting class.  In the morning we learned how to do hand painted yarns.  Below is a picture of the morning's output.

In the afternoon we learned how to kettle dye and speckle yarn.  At the end of the day we all went home with 4 skeins of beautiful fingering weight yarn.

The only downside of the whole process was when we had to handle the dye powders.  Masks were required.  It was a hot, humid day and even the air conditioning couldn't make wearing these masks comfortable.  Don't I look lovely!

At lunch time Cindy and I browsed the Destination Yarn trunk show.  I bought these cute project bags.  Because of my fiber issues, I need to take the one on the left to heart.

And some Game of Thrones yarn.  My son loves the show.  This skein will become a hat for him.

Not sure about these mini skeins yet.  Maybe socks.

Here are the skeins from the workshop.  This first one is a hand painted made primarily blue-green with yellow-orange and purple-red as accent colors.  This was dyed without adding something to tone down the color.  It is very vibrant.  I think this one will be called Jamaica.

The next skein is another hand painted.  The main color is green with accents of blue-green, yellow-orange and a blend of pink-yellow.  This one is named Parrothead.

The kettle dyed skein has seven colors:  yellow-green, green-yellow-brown, green-brown, grey, blue, blue-grey and blue-black.  This one is named Irish Coast.

The last one is also a kettle dyed but with speckles.  The base color is grey.  Fire Yellow and purple speckles were added to create the speckled effect.  I have to admit that I didn't really love this when it came out of the dye bath.  I thought the colors looked muddy, with too much blending of the yellow and purple.  But now that is is drying and I look at it more, I'm learning to love it.  It seems to have a hidden potential.  This one is named Ugly Duckling.