Running Really Slowly

Halloween is coming soon! This means that in addition to my own daughter and her constantly changing costume demands, I also have friends asking if I'll help them with costumes for their kids. And time permitting I always want to help. My BFF Jennie, asked if I'd make an elephant hat for her daughter so she could wear it to pre-school with some gray leggings and a t-shirt and still be comfortable. And since I love Julia, I happily agreed. I looked all around for ideas for hats. Some were cute but had no pattern, some had patterns but the trunks looked weird and squashed down looking, and then I stumbled upon this Elephant Crochet Hat at All Free Crochet. The pattern wasn't exactly what I wanted to make, but it was close enough that I could adapt it. Plus, I liked the nose. It wasn't until later in the process that my friend Nicole pointed out that the pattern was by Repeat Crafter Me's Sarah, which makes so much sense. I devotedly read her blog and really love her stuff. 

So I followed the pattern for the first 5 rows, then added some DC's because I was making this hat for a toddler instead of an infant. I increased so I did 55 stitches at the max, and then added an extra two rows in order to make it a little longer. I kept the earflaps the same, but then decided instead of single crocheting around, that I would double crochet around so you could see more of the contrasting color. I used a pink color, instead of the gray, to make it a little cuter and girlier. And, since I did DC's in the chains hanging down from the ear flaps, it added some weight and made the strings twist into adorable little curly-q's!

Then I followed her instructions for the ears, but because I'd made the hat larger, the ears were too small and looked a little mousy. So for the outer edge of the ear (the gray color), I added an extra two rows of her Row 4, just adding extra DC, SC combos on to the end or either side to fill it out properly. For the inside of the ear (the pink), I only added one extra row.

And for the trunk, I just added two rows of single crochet to the end to make it a little longer. The main alteration I made there was making the magic ring (round 1) pink, and then switching to the gray color for the rest of the trunk. Although, once I put the trunk on... I wasn't entirely convinced this hat was going to look ... appropriate. 

But once I stitched the ears together and attached them, it started to look a little better. Then I had to decide what to do about the eyes. The pattern called for button eyes, but with a toddler at daycare it seemed like it might be asking for trouble. So I quickly whipped up my own little eyes. Here's the "pattern" if you want to make them. 

Back of the Eye (White) - Make 2 Magic Ring, Chain 1, and make 5 SC in the ring. Join and SC.  Row 2: 2 SC in each stitch (10 SC). Fasten off and leave a long string at the end. 

Inner Eye (Black) - Make 2  Magic Ring, Chain 1 and Make 5 SC in the Ring. Join and fasten off leaving a long string at the end. 

Sew the black "pupil" to the center of the white eyeball. Then make a French Knot out of white yarn like you would use if you were cross stitching or embroidering (there are lots of video tutorials on the web on how to do this). I put the knots of white just slightly off center, to give the eye a little bit of a twinkle. Then attach the entire eye to the hat. 

It still felt like the hat wasn't quite done. So I opted to add a bow. Originally I was going to make it pink, but it was just way too pink. So I opted for a nice bright purple instead. I did a pretty simple bow: CH 30. Turn. DC in second stitch from the  hook and then all the way across. CH3, Turn, DC into each stitch across. Fold the bow, then use a slip stitch to attach the two ends together.  CH 50. Bind off End. Wrap the chain around the middle of the bow, and tie the ends together. 

Of course, then I got talking to my friend Nicole and said that I might need to make a tail. And she said, "like Eeyore with the little bow" and then off I went making a tail that Jennie could attach either to her daughter's leggings, or to the tutu she may make. It was late, and I was too lazy to look up a pattern, so I just sort of played around with it and came up with this on my own. 

Tail Pattern Magic Ring, CH 1, Then SC 5 into the ring. Join (leaving the closed circle a little looser than normal. Row 2-8 - SC into each stitch (5 SC)  Row 9: SC Decrease, SC into next 3 stitches (4 SC)  Row 10- 14 - SC into each stitch (4 SC) Row 15: SC Decrease. SC into next 2 stitches (3 SC) Row 16- SC into each stitch (3 SC) Fasten off, leaving a long string. Then cut a few lengths of yarn. I cut about 6 inches. Pull each strand through the bottom of the tail, when you get to the middle, knot the yarn. Then when you've done all of them, cut the hanging pieces so they are all even (or you could leave uneven if you choose).  Tail Bow CH 24. DC into second stitch from chain, and then DC into each stitch across. Slip Stitch the ends together to make a circle. CH 30. Fasten off. Wrap around the middle of the bow and then tie. 

Sew the bow onto the tail and you are all set.

So after yesterday's determined post about how I was going to get back into training, I decided to jump right in today. Maybe a little too hard, but you know, that end of August date (which just so happens to coincide with a big milestone birthday that I'm trying to ignore) is looming. So I did my own twisted version of a triathlon, where I biked five and a half miles, did Adrienne's GRIIT class and then biked the five and a half miles home. The ride there was great. The class was ridiculously hard (as expected), and the ride home (even though it was largely downhill) took me forever. Like how did a downhill ride take longer than the uphill ride there? Only by about three minutes, but STILL. Especially since on the ride there I got stuck in every traffic light and waiting for a train to pass by. I'm blaming all the heavy kettle bells. 

While that was all great, and I managed to get in my intense workout, and my bike training for the day, the most heart-racing moments were driving through my own town. Seriously, people here just think that  bikers are like target practice. I'm convinced of it. Or else it is really just super fun to drive up next to someone within an inch of them and speed up?

Since I sporadically started running a few years ago, I have almost always run by myself. I've run with my dad once or twice, or done that thing with my brother where we start out together and he meets me at some point because he's so damned fast. But largely all of my running has been done solo. I never like the pressure of trying to keep up with someone, or feeling like I was slowing them down. So when asked to go on group runs, I always shy far away. 

But a month or so ago my friend Beth mentioned she wanted to start running. She'd never run before, and was hoping that her entire active family could do a 5K together in the fall. A nice, easy goal. I had mentioned couch 2 5K to her, which was the walk-run training plan I used when I started out, and told her that was the best/safest bet to learn to run without getting injured. 

Now I'm currently unemployed and seeking a new job, and I have a lot more time on my hands than I normally do, so I can work around her schedule a little bit. Most days we run together, we drop the kids off at school and head out for whatever the Couch 2 5K app has in store for us. Beth dubbed the lady on the app "Booty", in hopes that our own booty's will look better when we finish the program. And because its a fun thing to say when you want to be done with a stretch of running and your legs hurt. If you hear two crazy ladies running in the park screaming, "Shut up, Booty", you know why.

Still, even though I agreed to do this with her, and she's my friend, I never really dreamed it would be as rewarding for me to do this as it is for her. For her, she's learning to run, for me, I'm getting back to basics. It's helping me breathe better, which is nice, and with someone to talk to, I'm less focused on counting the seconds until I can walked and far more focused on our awesome conversations. 

The bonus of all this running, is that for 30 minutes, three times a week, I get to see my friend and catch up with her. What a wonderful luxury that i rarely get with any of my other friends. So we plod along through the park, and talk about kids, families and other drama/stress that is going on in our lives. The conversations are easy and just flow and I'm always surprised when "Booty" tells us that we're already in cool down walk mode. We've started referring to running as our therapy sessions.

And she's keeping me accountable. There are 100% days that I just want to curl up on the couch and look for a job and watch mindless TV. But knowing that she'd be disappointed gets me moving. There are days that neither of us want to go and we just grouch and grumble together and suffer along until it is done. Last week she was short on running time due to work/life commitments, so one day we doubled up our run. Of course, that day it was pouring down rain. I was inclined to stay inside, but she gamely said we'd just get wet. So we went. We ran/walked for 45 minutes and it was maybe one of the most enjoyable runs we'd done so far. 

My daughter and I were having a quiet hang out day, and she begged me to play Candyland. I agreed, even though I thought that the game might be a little young for her. So we played a couple rounds and she seemed to be getting bored, and frankly, so was I. While she took a bathroom break, I started doing some pushups. She came back, spotted that and said that the person that lost, need to do 10 pushups. This quickly evolved into a competitive game of bootcamp Candyland. Here are the official rules we came up with: 

Bootcamp Candyland Rules Loser of the game does 10 push-ups. If you pull a picture card you have to do 15 sit-ups. Land on a licorice spots and do 25 jumping jacks. If you get sent backwards (from a picture card) you have to do 25 squats. (This is in addition to the sit-ups). Take the rainbow trail and gumdrop pass and do 20 lunges (10 on each leg). 

We had a blast playing this... until she unluckily pulled 10 picture cards in the course of 3 games and had to do 150 sit-ups. Poor kid. But she stuck with it. Halfway through the game, we added a 5 rep punishment for any whining. And if you couldn't do the exercises, you default lose and we added a 10 push-up penalty to the loser push-ups.