Saturday, July 10, 2010

Tour de France Project

I love the Tour de France. I don't follow cycling except for the Tour, but I love it. It might have something to do with the fact that I love most things French, but not all, and I love the actual country. I can't stand mushrooms and that is something not very Francophile at all.

However, I love the Tour and follow it as much as possible during the week, watching when I can, and I watch on the weekends. During my last summer without 9 to 5 working, when I was studying for the bar exams I took, I watched every day on mute while studying.
Now, I watch less but love it just the same. It's an incredible feat just to ride it and to win it is to be lucky and skilled and determined.

A fair amount of people do a Tour De Fleece where they spin an entire fleece during the three weeks of the Tour. I am doing my own Tour challenge, of a project to complete during the Tour.
I cast on a pair of socks during the first real stage, not the Prologue, and have been knitting on them ever since. They are my Tour challenge, my mountains to climb.



I made a little more progress after taking this photo. I have three repeats done on the first sock I started and I have one repeat finished on the second sock and am on the second repeat now. I want to have three repeats finished on the second sock finished by the end of the day today at least. I think I will need two more repeats on each sock after that for a total of 5 repeats for the foot. I plan on using wendy's gusset heel for these socks instead of the one using wrap and turns. I think I am on pace for finishing these socks by the end of the Tour. We will see how that keeps going. I think there will be a lot of catch up on the weekends for these socks.

I also went running yesterday. M and I joined a running club, the Shamrock Runners. They are out of Woburn, MA, right near where we lived in Burlington. We went to go do a trail run they do on Saturdays yesterday, but people were only there for the earlier runs. M was going to do the entire 9 mile run, but I was going to do less. It was hot by the time we got there at 8 AM and we were the only ones there. We weren't really feeling it and after a few false starts we did 1.9 miles out in 21:26 minutes and walked back because I felt bad after that. I felt light headed and dizzy and like I was going to get sick. He went to the gym after that and did another 6 miles inside. It was too fast for me, our pace. In the heat, I couldn't go that fast and feel good after three drinks the night before and not properly hydrating. I'll try it again next week maybe when we go earlier and without drinking the night before and will properly hydrate.

Happy Knitting and weekend!

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