Wait, what? This woman is running a MARATHON – while also knitting

Oct 22, 2015

Meet Meredith Parmalee, who is going to run the New York City Marathon.

Not only is she going to do that, she is going to have the added task of knitting while she runs 42.2 kilometres. Knitting with her fingers, that is.We're all for living a healthy lifestyle, but this particular task just seems completely bizarre.

Woman’s Health caught up with the ambitious runner to see what she had to say about her cray-cray fitness pursuits.

As it turns out, Meredith is practically a marathon guru – anyone who has completed more than 10 successive kilometres is a goddess in our eyes. After completing three half-marathons she was interning with an organisation in Spain.

We Are Knitters was trying to find a new promotional angle, and Meredith suggested ‘finger-kintting’ while running a marathon as she had seen some craft aficionados do before.

How does one even begin to attempt such a challenge?

“I watched some YouTube tutorials and taught myself. Then, I started walking around the block while finger knitting and eventually went on a run with my yarn.”

She admits that it took her a while before she got the hang of things, but eventually knitting and running began to feel natural. Sort of:

“It gets really sweaty, so I don't think anyone wants it. After a couple of runs, I have to use new yarn because it gets really gross.”

Delightful, but all for a good cause of course. One the strangest parts of her story has to be the reaction she gets, which is that nobody has ever really bothered to enquire as to what on earth she was up to.

“I got a lot of weird stares at first, but no one ever asked me what I was doing or why I was doing it. That made it more awkward because I wanted to explain myself.”