One Week

One week from today, I'll be leaving for my Ironman in Madison, Wisconsin. Thankfully, due to the crazy traveling I did last year for work, I was able to use my frequent flyer points to buy a plane ticket. I was so dreading that drive. Especially the drive home. Now, I'll be traveling in style...well, as in style as you can get when flying United.
Due to my extreme hatred and mistrust of United, my bike will be hitching a ride with my friend Carolyn from Tulsa. I barely trust them to get me there (if they can just get me to Chicago, I'll be able to rent a car and drive from there), so I have absolutely no confidence that they'd actually get my bike there. So, I'll be dropping my trusty Kuota off at her house on Monday so she can start her journey north on Tuesday. It's going to be a busy weekend getting everything ready along with completing my last bit o training. The long-term weather reports are looking good for Madison right now, but as the people who raced there last year discovered, it can turn from perfect to horrible without much warning. I'm hoping for perfect this year, but I'll be prepared for horrible. That means a very full suitcase. I think I'll be taking two. One for my triathlon gear, and the other for clothes.
The training has been good the last couple of weeks. Ashford helped get me through an indoor bike ride:



And my friends Andrea, Megan, Jenn and Tracy have help get me through my long runs. It has made the long runs go by so much faster and they're much more fun. They've taken shifts so I have had the motivation to keep going. It's been great to have them be a part of my training, and because of them, I've had a several great runs to lead up to Ironman

This afternoon, race numbers were posted. I'm #2180, so I guess they're expecting me to show up and race. It sounds like a lucky number to me.

But enough about the Ironman. This last weekend, I finished spinning another one of the rovings that Linda and I dyed. If I were the type of person to jump up and down clapping and squealing over a skein of yarn, this would be the skein. It's such a beautiful rainbow, and I'm impressed with how well I was able to keep it so even. Hooray!



I also cast on for the Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann with the orange and purple yarn I spun from the roving Linda and I dyed. It is the first time I've dyed, spun and knitted the yarn. It's extremely satisying. I had to try out this pattern by EZ. One, because it is super cute, and also because of her last name. I doubt we're related (her last name is spelled wrong!), but EZ is a bit of a superstar in the knitting world. I just hope I have enough of the yarn. If not, I'm going to have to try to remember what I used to get the colors.


And it can't be a blog post without cute kitten photos.

Xena and her entourage:


Psst, come here...yeah, you. Let me tell you something...


How can you resist this face?