spaazlicious

April is Autism Awareness Month!
So I guess it's high time for a recap of the Autism 5K last month.

And I ran the Carlsbad 5000 on April 9th so I wanna talk about that too.

Interspersed will be piccies of fiber for variety.

Anyone want to run the La Jolla Half Marathon's 5K on the 23rd? It's supposed to be quite pretty.

The Autism Run

I wrote this recap awhile back.
The Race for Autism was fun, and a good fitness wakeup call. Nick had been sick and I used it as an excuse to stop running as well, so we hadn't been running for at least a month before. We were shocked that we were able to even run the first mile. Then we walked for a quarter mile, ran a quarter mile, walked a quarter mile, ran, walked, ran, walked, etc. and ran across the finish at just under 35 minutes which was quicker than we expected, but still a bit laggard at this pont if we're to run 13.1 miles by September 17.

5Ks should be a good fun speed checkup, plus there's a ton of them esp. in April and May. Of course, I'm not running 5K straight through yet, and don't think I will be by the Mud Run and Carlsbad 5000 next weekend, but it'll be a fun time nonetheless. [Didn't do the mud run, and didn't run straight through the C5K]

Anyway, the Autism 5K was a fun event. There were a fair amount of participants, but we missed out on meeting up with Nancy and her family--we trotted past them at the start though, heading toward the bib pickup after the race started across the Cabrillo Bridge.


A mound of recently dyed superwash and merino/tencel. Getting ready for spring-themed spinning.

Couple of weird things though, and since this was only my second 5K I don't know if they're normal:

1. was all the iPods, like people running in pairs with iPods on. I hope they were at least listening to the same playlists.
   
2. people threw their watercups all over the ground, sometimes just steps after the table. I mean, c'mon, that's just not nice. It's a little waxpaper dixie cup, would it kill you to hold it 'til you run past the waste can? it wasn't an olympic competition or anything.
   
3. walkers. Seriously, if you are walking the 5k from the start, then don't start with the runners (and don't headstart either, you cheaters ;P), you just hold the pack up (some of the course parts were really narrow so three people walking abreast were a slow-moving roadblock). As I said, this is only the second race I've been in, but I'm sensing a theme here: each one's had a published delayed start for walkers that the walkers have completely ignored.
   Kind of fun weaving in and out though.
   

A bit of bombyx silk I dyed to sell as handpainted sliver but wasn't happy with the way much of it turned out, so I'm spinning it up without really knowing what end use it will have.

There were a bunch of photographers there and I wasn't thinking or I would have smiled more. I definitely won't wear those trousers to run in again (I had something in a front pocket that skewed the trousers and made it look like I had a pinga) and need to work on my running form. Good pic of Nancy at the finish though.

At the Carlsbad 5K, I remembered to smile when I noticed them, but I'm not photogenic at the best of times.


Some of the spun bombyx plied over a core of superwash thick and thin yarn.

The Carlsbad 5000

Nick got sick again, so I ended up running it for the both of us. I waffled about going at all for just a few minutes too long and ended up missing the women's start at 10.20 and must have just missed the walker's start because by the time I got there, they had the start taped off and just a guy with a cellphone hanging out.

So I hung around for an hour, with Nick's chip on my left foot and my chip on my right foot and waited until 11.30 so I could run with the Elite Men's group.
Yeah. I felt kind of awkward; I totally stuck out.
I had way more leg hair than most of them.

I let the crowd clear out when the starting gun fired so I wouldn't be in anyone's way, then I started. It wasn't a huge group but I waited maybe a halfminute, a minute or so before starting out myself and it's strange because my chiptime and the clocktime are exactly the same on our race results. Is that right? Am I missing something?


I plied the silk with the superwash, then plied it again in the other direction creating some loops from the first ply and binding them with the second ply. I alternated plying angles and speeds to keep it random--in some places it's coiled, in others it looks like fishnet, some loops, and some sections where the silk stuck out enough to ply back on itself like little shiny two-ply flags or tags. I plied it again in the other direction and repeated the randomness, sometimes pushing the previous plies around to lock them down a certain way.

The Carlsbad 5000 runners take themselves pretty seriously. People go there to break world records so there weren't any weaving walkers blocking the course and I didn't notice any iPods in the group.

I started last, but I didn't finish last, so that makes me happy. Not to make it sound like I beat any "Elite Men" though, there were other people running in the group who had obviously missed the other start times too, but I did wait and start last.

I also did a personal record for me, at 29.58 (I think my time at the Revlon thing was 33 minutes?) which I'm okay with and looking forward to improving as I get fitter.
I ran the first two miles, walked a tenth, ran for a few minutes (five? I need to get a watch), walked another tenth or so, ran, walked a tenth, ran the last quarter mile and sprinted like hell the last tenth for the finish (I heard people laugh. I think I probably (definitely) need to work on my efficiency of movement. I heard the announcer say, "Uh, way to work on that speed, good job!" as I akimbo'd toward the finish line.)

Anyway, it was NOT a flat course, at least a third of it was what I might define as a gentle slope (but another third was gentle downhill slope and the rest flat, so I guess it was pretty flat). It blows my mind anyone was able to run it in 13.15, let alone that it was the fifth fastest time at the race on record. Crazeeeee.

So with just under 35 minutes at the Autism 5K and just under 30 minutes at the C5K, if I take five minutes off my running time with every 5K, I'll be breaking world records in no time.

(yeah, I know it doesn't work that way)


I ended up with 37.5 meters of grape-vine tendrilly yarn. I have a larger quantity of green superwash and silk, I think it will look quite cool done up like that.

Next events on the event wishlist:

• April 23, La Jolla Half Marathon 5K
  
• May 8, SD U-T's Race for Literacy 8K
  
• May 13, San Diego Humane Society's Walk for the Animals--I started a team page, please join us/cough up money. Seriously, San Diego Humane Society has the best facility we've ever seen. I'll make the team page fancier when I have a half a chance, but for now it's just bare bones "Queen Crivens and her Minions."
  
• May 21, Bay to Breakers!