I can still run!

Yesterday was a stellar day, all the way around.

I'm beginning to think this shoulder/arm/whatever pain is something I'll just have to deal with when I wake up. There was a bit of random soreness in the morning and I considered taking an Aleve, but ultimately decided not to. As the day wore on, the pain let up. I had almost full range of motion for the first time in a month.

This morning? Same thing. My upper arm is sore, but not painfully so, and I have every confidence that it will work itself out as I drink more coffee.

Caffeine! The cure for what ails you!

Since I was feeling so good and the weather was amazingly cooperative [a bit of sun, no wind and an unseasonably warm 55-ish temperature], I got ready to run. I went to the grocery first, stopped at what passes for a discount store here in the Middle of Nowhere and bought a watch/chronometer and then hit my two-mile flat road.

My recent walk/runs have been on this road but I've only gone out 1.5 miles. Yesterday I went the distance and only walked the last half mile. I figured out how to do splits with the chonometer but accidentally reset it so I can't report how slow I was.

The good thing, though, is that while I didn't run continuously for 30 minutes, I did mostly run, taking only occasional one-minute walk breaks. And the better thing is that I didn't hurt. Anywhere. For the first time since the Raleigh race, all my body parts felt good all at the same time.

Food yesterday was good, so good, in fact, that the only thing I remember eating is the omelette I had for dinner, and the only reason I remember that is that the smoke alarm went off when I forgot about the butter melting in the skillet. Our smoke alarm is tied into our house alarm system and I got two calls from the monitoring service. I felt really silly explaining that the only emergency we had was of the cooking variety.

And knitting? On Saturday I joined the front and back of the pink sweater I'm working on and finished the neckband, and yesterday I started the first sleeve. The pattern was written for a drop-shoulder, which creates a lot of unnecessary bulk under the arms [and, incidentally, uses up more yarn], so I revised it to a set-in sleeve. Thanks to the magic of short rows, I was able to pick up the sleeve stitches from the armsceye and I'm now working my way down to the cuff.

The advantage of creating a sleeve this way is that the join of the sleeve to the body of the sweater is neat and clean [because you don't have to sew it in] and when you're working your way down, you get to decrease every inch or so – there are fewer stitches on your needle by the time you get to the cuff.

I'm doing the sleeves flat – I don't mind sewing straight seams but my sleeve-to-body seams leave much to be desired – since the sleeve stitch pattern for this sweater is mostly garter stitch. [Garter stitch in the round is *knit one round, purl one round* – call me crazy, but I'd rather knit than purl.]

I've noticed a lot of people have saved the Santa hat pattern – be sure to let me know how it works for you. Pictures! Point me to your pictures! My granddaughter wore hers to day care one day last week; her teachers said she was their "Santa baby." Awwwwww.