q is for quilt.

for months, the most ridiculous stack of race t-shirts from all of the runs i've done over the last couple of years was hanging out in a corner of our bedroom.  i don't have a whole lot of drawer space, let alone closet space, and so i just kind of kept adding to the pile every time i came home with another shirt.

finally i decided that it was time to do something with them.  but i didn't want to give them away (every one of those things was hard-won, dammit), nor did i really feel the need to keep them even to sleep in.  after giving it a little thought, i decided that maybe it was time to pop my quilting cherry.  so i turned to the google, which rewarded me with a bazillion different blogs and tutorials on how to make a t-shirt quilt.  i perused a good handful of them, hemmed and hawed over it a little longer, and then figured i'd just go for it.  why not, right?

the first order of business was sorting through the shirts to pick out the ones i wanted to use.  i don't know why i didn't take a picture of the original pile, but here's the stack of the ones i decided to keep:

yeah.  that's the KEEP pile.  most of them are made out of that dri-fit/tech-type material, which i actually do wear for runs and other workouts.  plus, the plain ol' cotton ones are just softer anyway.

then it was time to start chopping 'em up.  i don't know why the first cut made me so nervous, but i'm a dork, so there's that.  off went the sleeves and the neck from each shirt.

step one, check.  now not only did i have a neat stack of cut-up shirts, but a gigantic pile of excess fabric.  and there was t-shirt dust everywhere that made me sneeze about a bajillion times.

i'd picked up this handy-dandy quilting square at joann's, and it proved to be my BFF during this part of the process.  i went back through the pile one by one, trimming them down into a perfect 12" x 12" square.

when i was done, my pile of leftover fabric was even bigger.

the next step was to adhere some light interfacing to the back of each piece.  because t-shirt fabric is so squirrely, it helps to stabilize it a little to make it easier to work with.  i ironed it on carefully and then trimmed away the extra from each side.

now it was time to lay them all out and figure out what order to sew them in.  i tried to space them out so that the colors were all evenly distributed, and i think i did a fairly decent job.  molly seemed to think so, anyway.

sewing the rows together was pretty easy.  i was pretty proud of myself for not having to bust out the seam ripper even once during this part.

i'm usually pretty breezy about pinning stuff together.  like, i always think i can just hold it together as i sew.  and for the most part, that works out for me.  but i wanted to be careful with this so that i didn't have to go back and fix mistakes.  out came the pins to make sure the fabric didn't wiggle around:

with the front of my quilt finally done, i hit up joann's again to find some batting to use in my quilt.  this should be pretty easy, right?  i mean, how difficult could it be?  and then i got there and was stupefied at the sheer number of different types of batting to pick from.  and this was just one side of the aisle!  good gracious.

i ended up going with this:

back at home, i laid it out and placed my shirts on top.  clearly, i overestimated how big my project was going to be.  that's okay, though - better too much than not enough.  also, i don't know how i managed to jack up the alignment of the bottom row, but by that point i just didn't give a shit anymore.  i'm not trying to win a prize or anything with this thing, ya dig?

the bottom layer was comprised of two fleece throws i'd bought at ikea for like $3 apiece.  i knew that would be way cheaper than buying yardage at the fabric store, and the color worked just fine.  see, i can be thrifty when i want to be.

i pinned everything together, folded it all up, and put it down in a corner of the office.  and then it stayed there…for two months.  maybe three.  i lost track.  i was a little intimidated by the quilting process, and although i'd already bought a walking foot attachment for my sewing machine, i wasn't in the mood to figure out how to put it on.  not to mention that it was hot as hell, and making a blanket - not exactly high on the priority list.

until this weekend, when it was cold and rainy and wonderful.  i took out that walking foot, looked at the thickness of the stuff i was sewing together, and figured i'd give it a try first without attaching it.  and lo and behold, it worked out just fine.  that walking foot will just have to wait for something else.

i sewed the two blue fleece throws together, laid everything out, chopped off the sides, pinned it all together, and got to work.  the first order of business was to do the quilting part - most people will sew some sort of decorative pattern through each square to bind it all together.  i suppose you could just sew all the sides together and call it a day, but quilting keeps it all in place so that the layers of material don't move around and get all jacked up.  anyway, i decided to keep it simple and opted instead to just sew down all the lines around each square.  the back of the quilt ended up looking like this:

when that was all done, i spread it out on the floor again and trimmed the edges a little more to leave about an inch or so of the bottom layer to do a "cheater binding."

folks who know their shit usually make or buy actual binding - long strips of fabric that you wrap around the edges of a quilt and sew down.  but because i'm a lazy ass who wasn't in the mood to add any more work to this thing, i did it this way.  i folded the fabric over, pinned it in place, and sewed it down.  at the end, i folded the corner down and then worked on the next side, and over and over until all four sides were all done.

because the edges were all jagged and uneven, i picked up my tiny trimming scissors and cleaned it up a little.  i snipped off all of the remaining loose threads, and then i totally patted myself on the back for finally finishing this damn thing.  the bean was happy to take a picture of my triumphant finish.

and then she wanted a turn too.

again, this thing is FAR from perfect.  there's all sorts of stitching that really shouldn't be visible, and the uneven lines on the bottom row really bug the hell out of me whenever i look at it.  but i'm pretty proud of my very first (and last.  i ain't doing this shit again, such a pain in the ass) quilt.  and the timing is perfect too, because the last few nights have been kind of chilly, and this thing is probably the warmest blanket in the house.  the bean and i are digging snuggling in the couch in it.

not too bad, if i do say so myself.

never say never

i've officially been a spartan now for almost two weeks.  aside from a headache that made its first appearance the moment i hit the first obstacle and keeps coming back to visit me, i'm pretty much back to 100%.  and while i'm really glad i did it, it's not something i plan to repeat.

or, at least, you won't find me registering for any more spartan races - especially since i'm sure they all involve that awful freezing cold water in some shape or form.  since i'm not really all about cheating death, spartan is something i've crossed off the list in permanent, thick black sharpie.  but i keep reliving the whole thing in my head, and last night i watched the official video.  i've come to the conclusion that i could probably be talked into another obstacle course-type thing again, as long as i didn't have to face any swimming in deep, frigid bodies of water.  you hear that, kelley?  you know you wanna!

and i got my official pictures from the spartan photographer!  they're stationed at the major obstacles and snap, snap, snap away.  they take about a week to sort through all the pictures they take, and when they're ready they provide you with a search engine to find your shots by bib number.  and a sweet perk of this race is that they give you the photos for free.  you choose your shots, place an order that costs nothing, and get a link to download them all.

check these out.  i totally feel badass all over again just looking at them.  barbed wire crawl:

lugging that heavy ass sandbag up and down a hill.

fire jump!

dodging the gladiators who tried to knock me down.  i laugh in your face!

then two hours after the beginning of the race, crossing the finish line behind mr. lilcee and kelley.

did you watch "full house" back in the day?  you know...d.j. and michelle and hot uncle jesse and kimmy gibbler?  i'd read that andrea barber, the actress who plays kimmy, started doing half marathons when i did - she ran tinkerbell in january and hollywood in april, just like me.  and it turns out that she and candace cameron bure (d.j., of course) did this same spartan sprint, only a day later.  she and i are twitter buddies.  well, sort of.  see?

we're tight, me and kimmy.  i could totally be her new d.j.

i AM spartan

it's over!  and i survived, with the help of my friends kelley and mr. lilcee.  i never knew doing a spartan race was on my list of things to accomplish before i die until i crossed that finish line.  i have a ton of other stuff to share with you that came first, but i really want to get this down while the memories are still fresh in my mind.  old age, you know - i forget stuff pretty quickly nowadays.

also, today?  wan-niversary 7.0.  don't worry.  i'll share my gown twirl later in the week.  you know you can't wait.

oh, and a disclaimer or two:  i've never uttered so many curse words in the span of a couple of hours as i did during this race.  and to keep it authentic...well, i'm likely going to drop 'em here too.  consider yourself warned.  also, this post?  suuuuuuper long and full of photos that are mostly shitty, plus a few i swiped straight from the race website.

so, way back when i volunteered at the ragnar race, i met a really nice guy who told me all about the spartan race, a super awesome obstacle run that he just knew i could totally conquer.  piece o'cake.  he was really pumped up about it, and his enthusiasm was pretty infectious.  i shoved it in the back of my mind until somewhere around may.  that's when i came across a living social deal that offered entry into the race, plus an unlimited hot soup bar for not much more than i usually fork out for a 5K.  so i hit "buy" and then blasted the link out via facebook, making sure to tag kelley and mr. lilcee (who'd done it before)in the hopes that i could rope 'em into the madness along with me.  obviously, i was successful.  yay!

now, between may and this weekend i totally waffled on this whole thing probably a bazillion times.  and kelley was in the same boat - particularly during the last few weeks leading up to race day, we'd both watched videos and looked at the website that scared the living shit out of both of us.  she actually uttered the words "i don't want to do this, i think i'm going to back out," while i begged and pleaded and wheedled.  "please do not leave me stranded.  i promise you we'll take it slowly, and it doesn't matter how long it takes us to finish, let's just do it!"  i was relentless.

in the week before the big day, we received probably half a dozen different e-mails about what to expect and getting prepared for the race.  one of them highly recommended that we bring a headlamp if we expected to be out on the course after 3:00.  and since our registration got a little wonky, i was listed  in the 2:30 wave, kelley at 3:00, and mr. lilcee wasn't even listed at all.  ugh.  so i headed to target and picked up a little something for just in case.

race day dawned gloomy and wet.  damn.  i was already worried about this whole mud business without adding to it, dang it!  the whole way to malibu in lilcee's parents' minivan, we chattered about what to expect for the day.  there was a whole lotta OMGWTFBBQLOLZ and nervous giggling in there, man.  well, but not from mr. lilcee, who'd done a spartan race once before.

we were lucky enough to find a pretty good parking space close to the entrance, which we all took as an omen.  hey, at that point, we were gonna take whatever we could get.  and as we trudged through the light rain, we came across these signs:

comforting, yes?  um, no.  hell no.

registration was simple, and as we suspected, it was easy to adjust our race time to the 1:00 start we'd been promised by living social.

we're so excited!  we're so excited!  we're so...SCARED!

especially when we got a gander at the text on our timing chip packet.  i mean, seriously - "you may die, or become catastrophically injured"? in all caps, bold and red?  what. the. fuck.

the timing chip itself was different from any i'd ever used before.

with our start time less than half an hour away, we proceeded into the festival area.  "festival."  makes it sound so...festive, right?  like we weren't heading towards a death trap and a half.  psh.

i'd read about this beforehand - because there's a good chance of losing your bib despite being pinned down on all four corners, they brand you with your bib number with a sharpie.  on your forehead.  yup.  i went first, and then despite her disdain for ink on skin, kelley stepped up, followed by mr. lilcee.

the whole area was jam-packed with muddy, sweaty racers, warmly-dressed spectators, and a ton of others like us who were getting ready for our turns.

bag drop-off.

look at this shit, man.  it was everywhere, and there was no escaping it.  we were grimy even before we could start.

we found the living social tent with the soup bar and checked in.

poor kitty.

over at the finish line, we got a sneak peek at what we'd encounter before receiving our finisher's medal.  as promised, there was a fire jump - although after the initial "holy shit" knee-jerk reaction and a closer look, we realized it wasn't that bad.  with a decent running start, it looked pretty easy to clear.  and then there were armed gladiators to run through.  they seemed to take a lot of pleasure in beating the crap out of the guys and simply tapping and high-fiving the girls.

finally, we sucked it up and made our way over to the start line, where the 1:00 wave folks were beginning to gather.  this is when my heart started pounding like mad.

there was an announcer to our right, yelling out encouragement and pumping up the crowd into a crazed frenzy.  in answer to his "who are you?"  we all shouted "i am spartan!"  it helped ease my nervousness a little.  just a little, mind you.

when the crowd was finally released, we broke into an easy jog.  this only lasted for a little while before we reached our first obstacle:  a fucking cold ass lake of muddy, freezing water of questionable depth.  remember - i'm not a very strong swimmer.  so i tried to squelch my initial paralyzing fear and decided to just go for it.  i jumped in, and just about lost my shit - i couldn't breathe, and i thought i was literally going to die.  that was it, i was totally a goner.  the shock of that incredibly cold water was damn near too much for me, and as i waded through and reached the point where i couldn't touch the ground anymore, i panicked.  thank god for kelley - she never left my side and grabbed me by the arm to pull me along as best as she could.  she herself was getting a little help from a random dude behind her, and she turned to him and said "don't worry about me, but push her, would you?"  i tell you, if not for her and random good samaritan...i was toast.

when we finally reached the end, my head was throbbing with a headache that pounded instantly from that cold ass water.  ouch.  i honestly thought i was going to cry from relief, but i didn't have time for that shit - that was only the first of 15 promised obstacles to overcome.  i was just praying with all i had that the water was the worst of it.  i figured after that bullshit, the rest had to be a snap...right?

next was a fairly steep incline in that thick, gooey mud.  there would be no more running by our little group for the rest of the day.  as we walked along, some gung-ho dude came up behind us heaving and panting in our ears.  so disturbing.  from then on, we called all the runners who approached us "zombies."  i'm not sure they appreciated their titles, but we didn't give a shit.

our next obstacle was waiting for us at the top of the hill.  the cargo net wasn't that hard to climb.  the trickiest part was just timing it so that we didn't get kicked in the face by the muddy ass shoes worn by the climbers ahead of us.  easy peasy.

next up was the o-u-t:  over, under, through.  instead of relying on my upper body strength to get me over the wall, i cheated a bit and used the stands at the ends of the walls for a boost.

more climbing.  it was kind of a blessing to have had so many other spartans go ahead of us, because they created perfect footholds that made the climb easy-ish.

we'd been warned about the monkey bars from a girl we encountered as we were getting our stuff out of the car.  since i'd promised myself i'd try every obstacle and not just go straight for the burpee punishment, i stepped up and grabbed onto the first bar.  but my wet, muddy hands couldn't hold on and i slipped right off.  damn.

oh, i didn't explain the burpee penalties?  watch this:


if you failed any of the obstacles on the course, your punishment was to drop and do 30 of those things.  THIRTY.  fuck that noise, yo.  kelley and i did maybe a third of them before we looked around, shrugged, and got the hell outta dodge.  of course, the only way out was down a hill via this rope.  no biggie, though.

by the way, my pictures get a lot fuzzier from here on out.  i was toting my phone very carefully in a waterproof case i'd bought on amazon that i wore around my neck, and while it served its purpose nicely the water and mud got harder and harder to clean off.

here, ten box jumps.  again, the mud kept us from being able to do our thing properly.  so kelley and i reverted back to step class and pulled ourselves up and down one foot at a time.  oh, and yeah - there were lots of shirtless boys around.

while climbing up the hills was no picnic, i was more concerned about getting down them.  i knew the area was full of loose gravel, and just being in unknown terrain was nervewracking.  for once, though, the mud worked in our favor and kept us from eating shit.

i think i may have some of the obstacles out of order - i wasn't exactly in my right mind, ya dig? - but do you really care?  probably not.  hell, if you've made it this far, you deserve a medal too.  but you can't have mine.  i earned that shit.

anyway, according to my phone our next challenge was grabbing one of these heavy bags - pink (and lighter weight) for the girls, red for the guys.  we crawled through the wall, trekked down, around, and up the hill, back through the wall, and returned the bag before moving on.

the one and only water stop.  mr. lilcee had brought a water backpack that he generously stocked for all three of us, although kelley and i never did take advantage.  we sipped from one of the cups here, and that was all the agua we drank for the duration.

after we conquered yet another muddy hill, i think the next obstacle was the one where we were given a resistance band to wear around our ankles and told to bunny-hop our way up and down.  when that was over, at the bottom of another hill was the wall.  we were to make our way across the whole wall without holding on top or falling down.

did i mention the wet and mud and cold?  yeah.  this was the site of burpee punishment #2.

i don't even think we did more than five burpees before we got up and took off again.  the javelin throw was next, and the goal was to hurl that thing into the bale of hay and make it stick - even for a second - otherwise, burpee time.  i'm sure you can guess how that went.

not far from the javelin throw was another rope climb with a ladder down the back side.

right after that was a bunch of weights on pulleys, again with a lighter option for the girls.  you had to pull the rope to bring the weight up to the very top and then control the drop and keep the weight from creating a muddy splash at the bottom.  i managed this one fairly easily.

from the moment i'd pulled myself out of that frigid lake at the very start, i'd sworn that i wouldn't even attempt another water obstacle despite my promise to try every one.  no way was i going to risk drowning again, fuck that.  and of course, what was the next thing?  yup - another swim through the lake.  kelley was ready to go for it, but mr. lilcee knew it wasn't even a consideration for me.  we told her we'd wait at the other end for her, but she changed her mind and just walked through with us.  i felt bad for holding them back, but nothing could've swayed me.  and so we encountered the obstacle that kelley and i had been dreading the most:

not only were we to crawl underneath crisscrossed strips of sharp barbed wire that was just a few feet above the ground, but we were to do it uphill.  and it was broken up into two sections.  twice the fun.  not.

at first, we toughed it out and crawled on our hands and knees.  but after listening to the couple behind us who'd drop to the ground and rolled their way through, we followed their lead.  it truly was the easier way to do it, despite the hard-packed rocky ground beneath us.

halfway through the second stretch of wire, i looked up and noticed the photographer snapping away.

i don't know what came over me, but i somehow pushed and pulled and grabbed and yanked my way up that hill and out from under that wire at the top.  maybe it was a rush of adrenaline knowing that the end was near at last.  who knows?  all i know is, i got through without so much as a nick or scrape from the sharp points of the barbed wire.

i felt really bad for kelley, who was clearly struggling.  the barbed wire for her was as difficult as the water had been for me.  i tried to help the only way i could:  by shouting out encouragement for her and telling her how close she was to the end.  i was so proud of her when she finally emerged, triumphant and exhausted.

it was a relatively short descent back down towards the finish line, and we knew we were almost there when we could hear the music and the shouts of the crowd not far from us.  it was exactly the motivation we needed, and one by one we took off running to leap over the fire wall.

the gladiators gave us a few halfhearted smacks as we breezed through, and just beyond the last timing mat we accepted our medals, muddy bodies and all.

our t-shirts were handed to us here as well, which kind of sucked because we were all pretty much the filthiest we've ever been in our lives and those shirts ended up slightly grubby before we had the chance to wear them.  and when i draped mine over a partition to take this, i giggled at how the folds created a more appropriate title for this race:

even though we knew the water would be cold as ice, we didn't care - by then, we just wanted to wash off some of that caked-on mud.  people, i had dirt and sand and mud in places where things like that should NEVER touch your body.  unspeakable.

because we didn't want to change into our clean clothes and then have to trek through the mud again, we headed over to the living social tent for some hot soup.  i tell you, campbell's has never tasted so damn good.  we're talking like four cups' worth good.

hammin' it up with my hard-earned prize.

bonded for life!

when we'd gotten our fill of soup, our last stop was at the merchandise tent to see if there was anything good.  on our way, i smirked at this tent.  because, duh.  never ever ever ever doing that again.  like, ever.

of course i couldn't resist this "spartan chick" tee in my very favorite color.  come on now.

out!

after some contortionist-style maneuvering on the side of the road, we toweled off and managed to change into clean, dry clothing.  my teeth were chattering and i couldn't feel my hands anymore, and fresh underwear and pants never felt so good.  and in the car on the way home, with the heater on full blast and my limbs coming back to life, i popped open the mirror on the visor for a little inspection.  sex-hay, yes?

but, still:  who am i?

I AM SPARTAN.  fuck yeah.