The Graphic Design Professor Who Knits While Running Marathons

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We love that about America, too. Our weird passions, our weird hobbies. Today, we have a story from the man who holds the record for the longest scarf knitted while running a marathon. Here he is with his story. I'm David Babcock. Many people know me as the knitting runner. I don't usually call myself that. I'm a father, a husband, a university professor of graphic design. And I don't think of myself as a celebrity.

I'm just a pretty normal guy that is known for doing an unusual combination of two very normal things. Both knitting and running came about the same time, and that's how they got mashed up together. I was hitting middle-aged and I found that my metabolism had slowed down significantly. I knew I needed to exercise. I had tried running before, but whenever I ran for too long or too repetitively, my knees and ankles had really hurt.

And I think that hits a lot of people. So I was working on ways to do running that wouldn't injure myself. And at the same time, I have a general practice of trying to learn new skills. And I'd recently picked up crochet and knitting. So it's kind of a funny combination of these things take time, and there's not time to do a lot of running that takes hours and hours.

And sitting down to do knitting or crochet takes hours and hours. So when you try to learn too much in a tight time, you'll find that there's not time for both. You have to prioritize one or the other. So it's kind of a strange mix where I figured out how to have time for both at the same time. I'm a designer and a artist. I don't usually worry too much about the boundaries on those things. I like to call myself a maker.

So that encompasses anything. If I decide something needs making, then I'm the one who's going to learn how to make it. I love learning new skills, how to do things. For me, the entry was more of a need. I needed a hat. And I had a student of mine that made me a hat, but it wasn't exactly perfect for my needs. So I found myself looking at this hat thinking, well, I can do this. I can learn how to do this.

I can make this better for my needs. My grandmother, of course, knew how to knit and crochet. And you'd think that I would have learned from her. But nowadays, or back then even, it's YouTube.

It's everyone's grandmother. So I got on YouTube and tried to learn how to crochet. And I was able to figure that out and make my own hat. Then I figured out, well, I can make a better hat if I learn how to knit. So I taught myself again through YouTube how to knit. It just seemed like a natural skill to learn. It's like, well, why doesn't everyone learn how to knit and crochet? Everyone needs a hat.

So they should learn how to make their own. So with learning how to run, learning how to make running not hurt, how to make it work for my middle-aged body, I found that the best way to do that was to run kind of like, they say, barefoot running in a very flat style. So instead of picking my legs up and throwing them down and all the jarring that that did on my knees, I figured out that if you take little steps and try to land flat and gentle, as if you were barefoot, and some of my first efforts, I actually tried barefoot and then worked up the socks and water socks or whatever really minimal shoe I could do. And in doing that, it's kind of funny how it changed how I ran. So that instead of bouncing up and down as I ran, I was running really smooth. And it was just kind of weird.

It's like, oh, this is different. I've never run this way before. So all the ideas that I had about what running was about, you know, just pumping your arms and all that vigorous motion, it changed into something where I could breathe easier, I could talk easier, and my hands were more stable. Like I wasn't swinging my arms in big ways. I thought, well, if my hands are stable, I'm a person who does things with their hands. What can I do with my hands while I'm running? While I'm spending this hour or two on the road, trying to not think about how tired I am and how far I have to go and how I want to stop and lay down.

What can I do that would distract me? So what if I actually did some of my crochet at the same time? So I didn't start that immediately. My first experiment, you know, I like to do tests and slowly figure out a problem. So my first experiment was, can I hold my hands really steady as I run? So I think my first run, I basically just put my two hands in front of myself and touch my fingers together and then tried to figure out, can I run and keep my fingers in a stable position? So that worked. Then I think I actually tried carrying like a little cup of water.

Can I run without spilling a cup of water? And that worked. So I prepared a run where I had a tiny crochet hook, because that's what I was working on at the time, and a little bit of really thin thread.

And I started running with that. And it kind of worked, but of course there were some weird problems. I wasn't perfectly flat, so it's kind of hard to see where the holes were, and my hands were getting sweaty, and the string, the yarn I was using, started to get knotted up. And then it was really frustrating to try to get the knot out of the string. So it was basically a failure the first time I did it, but I didn't want to stop there. I didn't want to stop in the middle of a problem. So eventually I landed on something that worked. So having solved the crochet while running question, I thought, well, what about knitting while running? Because I had also learned how to knit recently. So I went through that series of experiments and figured out basically how to do it. And it was kind of a confluence of this problem to solve, and this problem to solve, and being curious if it would work. And not really self-editing, not saying, oh, that's silly.

Why would anyone try to do that? But just, hey, it's a problem, it's there, it's a question, it's a curiosity, it sounds fun to me. So I didn't really advertise what I was doing to people, but of course my family knew what I was doing. And my wife, her first response is, well, are you being safe while you do this? You know, obviously she doesn't want me to do anything that would hurt myself.

She's used to me doing kind of creative and crazy things, and of course is supportive of that. I reassured her it was safe. I did have an early, an early accident that taught me how to be more safe. I was running along a road in the countryside, and there were big potholes in it.

And I wasn't paying close enough attention, so I did step into a pothole, and I just went straight down. But the knitting needles were, when I knit, they're held across my body. They're not pointed directly at me. That's a really weird knitting technique.

I don't know if that would even work. So I was fine. I didn't stab myself with a needle, but I did scrape up my hands, and it was embarrassing.

I think I even hit my forehead too, because my hands were so busy I couldn't catch myself. So I figured out, okay, you know, obviously I've got to pay attention. I've got to keep an eye on the road, keep an eye on the knitting.

It becomes kind of a double focus thing, kind of like you keep one eye 18 inches in front of you and the other eye scanning, you know, the three feet in front of you. My first public race was a local half marathon. So there would have been maybe a hundred runners, and I felt pretty nervous being in public for the first time with, you know, my knitting stuff out. And I didn't know what people would think, and not that it matters a whole lot, but when you're doing something different, it's a weird mix of, I hope no one looks at me, and I hope someone looks at me. You want to be recognized you're doing something different, but you don't want to be embarrassed by it or scrutinized for it. You just kind of want to do your thing and have people quietly notice and appreciate it.

And you don't always get that. At the end of the race, I think my family was there to take pictures with what I had knitted, but there wasn't any news media or anything. So it was a very quiet thing. It was like, yes, I did this. And maybe I emailed a couple of family members.

I might've put it on a blog, but it was still a very private thing. And you're listening to David Babcock, the knitting runner, tell the story of how he became this thing. But in the end, we learned that this is his passion.

When we return, we're going to hear more from David Babcock and his remarkable story of merging his love of knitting and running into one activity here on Our American Story. Let's be real. Life happens. Kids spill, pets shed, and accidents are inevitable. That's why you need a washable sofa that can keep up. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out. So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to washable. That's why you need a washable sofa that can keep up. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out. So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living. Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, they're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life. Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

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Let's return to David Babcock's story. So when I was first experimenting with crochet and knitting while running I had of course the question well as I'm trying to do this is there anyone else who's tried to do this before and is that going to help me figure out how to do this? So I went online and it didn't take too long to find Susie Huer. She has a blog called the Extreme Knitting Redhead and in that blog she talked about her knitting while running a marathon the London Marathon and getting the Guinness World Record for this. I thought oh that's cool so yes there are people who've done this and there's actually a Guinness Record that's cool so I guess this is worth doing. So I didn't give it too much more thought beyond that at the time and I continued to do my own thing and figure out what works for me and it wasn't until in 2009 I had taken a trip to New York City and coming up out of the subway I just happened to come up in Central Park at the end of the New York City Marathon and I was just floored. I was totally inspired by seeing all the runners there. I just barely started running in earnest myself and seeing all those runners just giving it their all all body types all abilities. It moved me to tears. I thought well I'm just so impressed with what they're doing could I ever run a marathon?

Could I do that much? So I had set a goal at that point to run a marathon and I ran my first marathon in 2012 and I did it it worked. I was able to do a marathon under four hours and I felt really accomplished and at that point I'm like okay I've done it. That's my goal. I had this dream that I could do a marathon.

I'm done. That same year after I had run the marathon my brother-in-law decided he wanted to run a marathon and he was going to come to my city and run it with me so I'd already run a marathon. I didn't have anything to prove myself and I thought well I'll just run with him help him finish or run at his pace.

We had done a test run together and he was a lot slower than I was so I thought oh you know this is going to be an awful marathon if I'm running really slow. It's just hard to run slow when you think you can do better so I thought well maybe this is the time where I could take my knitting while running up to a more public level to actually do it during a marathon. So that made me look back at Susie Huers record where she had done it during the marathon and gotten a Guinness record so I thought well I wonder if I could actually get the Guinness world record for doing what she had done.

Could I do better than that? The process of getting a Guinness world record is really tough. It's in many ways harder than doing the thing itself so I figured out how to knit and run but figuring out how Guinness works and following all the requirements that was really tough. So it took me months and months to just get the application going figure out what it was that I had to do following all the parameters but it worked out that I was able to do the the Kansas City Marathon with my brother-in-law and have that be my my record attempt. I still hold the Guinness record for the longest scarf knit whilst running marathon there. Susie Huer when I knew I was going to potentially break her record I wanted to make sure that I did it for the right reasons.

She had originally done her Guinness record as a way to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer's research so when I knew I was going to attempt the record I made sure that I was connected with the Alzheimer's Association in the US and doing some fundraising for them and whenever I had the chance with media interviews I wanted to make sure to mention that because it was so important that what she had done to be amazing was not about herself it wasn't about what awesome things she could do but it was about refocusing people on something that mattered to her and something that that deserved attention and a little bit of focus for the for the fundraising so I tried to do that as much as I could. So Guinness had several requirements technical requirements for the scarf one was the size of the needles needed to be a US size 15. The number of stitches across needed to be 30 stitches straight needles 30 stitches and the pattern is what's known as a garter stitch with those requirements technically for the knitting and then the the marathon had to be an official licensed marathon and you had to finish under six hours so it's it's a balance of those things that needed to be figured out. The slower you run the closer to that six hour limit the more time you have to knit. I have my brother-in-laws running with and a special knitting witness that could verify that I was doing real knitting not finding some weird way around it and I had a camera strapped to my chest a gopro so I could have the whole thing videotaped without any interruptions it was all documented. I had rigged up several different bags so I had one fanny pack on on my front that held a plastic bag with a pre-wound ball of yarn in it and I would just feed it out of that bag into my hands and then I had another fanny pack behind me that had the other balls of yarn that I would do so I could after I finished one I could reach back and put the new one in the front bag and as the knitting got long enough I had to secure the scarf so it wasn't just waving around or tripping me up so I looped it with some paracord and carabiners onto the the waist pack that I had so it would be secured and as I ran it got so long I ended up winding it several times around my body it totally enveloped my upper legs so you couldn't even see my legs and so by the time I ended it it wasn't going to be mistaken for a scarf that someone was just wearing this this thing was huge it's like maybe two feet wide so not a normal scarf and width and then over 12 feet one and three quarter inches was the official measurement we had two knitting experts and an official measurement expert they laid it out on a pavement to measure it they were careful not to stretch it and I encouraged them to make sure they measured from the shortest dimension not the longest dimension and that's the size we got and it was almost double what the previous record had been and my time was a little bit shorter than the previous record that Susie Huber had done so it it worked out great it was it was a great success that that first record year in 2013 that same fall I went to New York and was was on the weather channels talking to them about knitting and running and they asked if I was going to run the New York City Marathon and of course there wasn't time to to get into the race then but I did end up the next year 2014 running New York City Marathon different race different requirements I couldn't use knitting needles because of security concerns but I ended up doing some finger knitting there I invented a new way of knitting so I could do 12 stitches and I did double knitting with that with words and a scarf so really intricate stuff with just my hands and no no tools the next year after that I did another New York City Marathon with finger crochet so again no tools but I made flowers off of yarn that I had wrapped around my arms and gave out the flowers as I ran with reminders about Alzheimer's and I think that maybe that same year the next one I did a giant crochet doily in the Kansas City Marathon and one of those years I also did a finger knitting half marathon so I had several races for several years then it was just kind of like okay I'm done this is this is over I don't need to do this anymore marathons are hard on the body I don't really consider a marathon to be a healthy thing because of how I end up at the end of the race just exhausted and dehydrated and so I wasn't really interested in doing too many more marathons it's interesting how things live on the internet they don't really go away things like this interview popping up it's kind of funny that the same month I'm scheduled now to go to Rome and participate in a reality tv show where they want me to knit while running on tv a talent show so it's so I've been training again you know making sure I can easily run and easily knit at the same time and it still works but it's it's different in that the spectacle level is increasing my personal risk of embarrassment is increasing so it's it's kind of a new challenge I don't think of myself as a performer or as a celebrity I'm kind of a behind the scenes do something let someone see the work but I believe in when there's an opportunity for something to go ahead and follow the opportunity without self-editing and saying oh that's not me or I can't do that or there's no way that that fits who I am but but instead take the opportunity to say oh okay fine I'll do a television interview even though that horrifies me I'll perform in public even though I'm really shy I'll I'll knit while running even though it sounds really silly and makes no sense and has no purpose but I believe in following those opportunities or those questions and just seeing where it leads so there are big time gaps in between some of my activities but as they keep coming I'll still do them and I don't know uh Susie Huard she's she's older than I am and she's her I think her record was at an older age than I did so there's still if there's some competition to me still as you know maybe I if I can still run as old as she is and still running she's a great role model in so many ways so there's there's still some fight left in me there's still some some knitting to be done and some races to run and what a beautiful and lovely soul 12 feet one and three quarter inches long almost doubles the previous record shatters the previous record the story of the knitting runner and that's david babcock's story a real beauty here on our american stories let's be real life happens kids fill pets 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