Books and Flowers and Running and Knitting

What day is it, anyway?

It occurred to me the other day how mixed up my days were when I opened my my timesheets for work and realized that I had been submitting them a week in advance. Apparently, I was in the future... and yet I was still running behind. A busy week does that to you.

I arrived back from Winnipeg last Saturday evening. Sunday morning, I got up and did some training, then got busy making lunches and packing up stuff to back to work. While I was away, our company moved into a brand new building, so the whole week was really a whirlwind of unpacking, organizing, learning new things and trying to catch up on unfinished things. Somewhere in there, I managed to pack a bag, and on Friday after work, we headed off for a weekend in Victoria.

Saturday looked like this:

A browse through Munro's Books:

A walk through East Sooke Park:

Lunch at a cafe in Sooke, which had these interesting plants growing outside:

A stroll through the grounds at the Fairmont Empress Hotel, where they always have the most impressive flower gardens:

And then I stopped by the conference centre to pick these up:

And on Sunday, I did this:

That's what it looked like to be right in the middle of the pack getting ready to run the Times Colonist 10k Race. I registered for it a few months ago to practice running in a big race in preparation for my half marathon in June. I've never run with 9000 other people before, but it was surprisingly fun. And I was surprisingly emotional at the beginning... being around so many excited people really hyped me up, and when we sung the national anthem, I looked up at the flag and started getting choked up. I had to really breathe through it to make sure my throat was open for the race.

I ran a good one, faster than I thought I'd do it, and learned a lot of things about me. Kilometre 6 always makes me feel like giving up. I seem to come through it near the end of kilometre 7. And it turns out I can really switch it on for the last two kilometres.

I ran next to two people dressed as zebras for most of the race (I think I left them behind somewhere... I can't remember now). And I saw a lot of children running with adults. There was one family that I recognized on the news later this evening: they were running together to celebrate their dad's heart surgery recovery. And there was one sole racer in a wheelchair. And a few visually impaired runners.

In all, it was amazing.

And somewhere, in the middle of this, I worked on my knitting project. I don't really want to show it right now, because I'm almost finished one sleeve, which is currently a mess of improvised decreases, and I'm really not sure about it. But it's there. And I'm still knitting.

It's during these busy times that I worry sometimes that I won't want to knit anymore... and that I won't want to keep up with this blog. But you know, I find myself drafting sentences in my head every day for this blog, even while running a race. I don't think I'll ever stop wanting to share my adventures.

And I kinda have too much yarn to stop knitting now. How's that for motivation?

I'm off to stretch a bit more and relax. I've got a knitting friend coming for a visit this week, so that's going to be fun. There'll be some adventures to share from that for sure!