We owned the Windy City

From the Indiana Adventure, you already know we caught the 9:30 train and were in Chicago by eleven in the morning.  What you don't know is the rest of the story so here we go!

After our last post, you all realize we have issues with getting lost.  Our directional challenged-ness is a chronic, life-long, affliction, regardless here is a short lesson on the matter.  Mird once spent over two hours looking for Sleepy Hollow State Park which was less than 20 miles from where she started her journey. While Vern once spent several hours trying to find her way home from a race in Holland...Michigan, not the country and no she didn't live somewhere else. She lived in Nunica which is less than 30 miles from Holland.  It was pretty ugly.  Now these are not facts that either one of us really like to share.  We are not proud to be so clueless when it comes to navigating to new places (or home), but these are true stories.  And there are many other similar stories that illustrate our uncanny ability to get lost (or temporarily misplaced) along life's journey.  Now why does this matter to you!?  Well because... It is nothing short of a miracle that the two of us even made it out of the womb safely with such bad internal compasses and now we've committed to traveling to all 50 states often unaccompanied in order to run these races.  That fact makes the running shoes journey all that more challenging and for us!

When two farm girls who grew up in Fremont, Michigan and have spent the better part of their lives lost in one way, shape or form are suddenly plunked down in the big ole city of Chicago most would probably assume that we immediately panicked and became lost.  If I were you, I sure would. However, you would be wrong.  We actually made it to the McCormick Center to pick up our race packets and then navigated all the way to our hotel without so much as a wrong turn!  It really was impressive especially given our track record!

We caught lunch, rested a little, drank some beer and made it to T Swift with time to spare.  Once again without getting lost.  We did in fact "shake it off" at Taylor's concert and made it back to the hotel about 12:30 am in time to catch 4 hours of interrupted and poor quality shut eye before we were off to the start of Rock n Roll Half Marathon, which we once again found without any trouble!!!

Race Commentary by Vern:
This particular race was a bit of a bust and I have been to a LOT of races so I feel I am able to gauge a good race when I see one.  This wasn't a good one.  If it weren't for the fact that I ran it with my little sister (her first half marathon) and we got our picture taken with the Nestle Bunny at the end, I would have been very disappointed.

Here are my complaints I would write the race director too, but I did that last time I was disappointed with a race and didn't even receive a response which was very upsetting to me so I don't want to put myself out there that way again.

1.  The course was too long and 13.1 is plenty far enough. We didn't need to go for nearly14 miles
2.  The heat advisory was still on so the weather was HORRIBLE for running (I realize the race officials can't control the weather, but they can add additional water stations, or at least have water ready for us at the planned aid stations which they often did not)
 3.  The rock concert every other mile was a complete HOAX.  There were four musicalish shows for us.  FOUR and NONE of them were rock bands.  The first was two overweight men playing a tuba and a saxophone.  The second was a lady with a cello.  Yes just one lady and she was not playing rock music either.  The third was in my opinion the coolest band.  It was a bunch of diverse children playing various culturally diverse percussion instruments.  Again it was not Rock 'n Roll, but I was impressed that the kids:

A.  all played together without fighting
B. didn't pass out from heat exhaustion
C.  were well behaved (at least while we ran  by)

The final band was an actual band of middle aged men playing blues music, not rock and roll.

4.  The party at the end was ridiculous as well.  You would have had to wait hours to get your FREE BEER (we didn't), the band wasn't playing at all during the 45 minutes we hung out.  In fact, we never actually saw a band at the party. I suspect there was no actual ROCK BAND at the Rock n Roll Half Marathon and that is an outrage.

All complaints aside,  the traveling running shoes made the 14ish mile journey, we snapped pictures at the end, the race shirt is one I really like and of course it was another quality adventure of the sisterhood variety.

State Number 3 Illinois

 Chicago July 19, 2015 Rock n Roll Half Marathon 87 degrees and sunny

 and huddled up at the finish with the Nestle Bunny!

Which way did we go!?!?

This past weekend our well-traveled running shoes put on some extra mileage. Unintentionally.  In the woods.  Here's how it all went down.

The kids and I were camping with Mird and her kids at their cabin near Standish Michigan with a bunch of other extended family members of Mirds' in-laws. It is a Labor Day tradition for her and I was just substituting for Mark who was drinking beer in Germany and also touring farms mind you! (another story another day).  Anyhow, Mird's brother-in-law was sleeping innocently and happily in his bed as were ALL of the children. We are smart.  We know when opportunity is knocking and that morning it definitely knocked- on the door of our running shoes' closet-- urging them to head out on the trails!   So we decided to sneak out at the butt crack of dawn and go for a quick run.  Harmless enough right!?

The plan was to return before anyone else woke up.  We didn't even leave a note as to our whereabouts because we planned to be gone about a half an hour.  It was roughly 6:40 so the plan seemed reasonable. And it was in fact reasonable, until we got lost.  We spent a little over an hour wandering aimlessly through the great forested area that surrounds her family's cabin.  We were definitely off-roading it on this adventure!  We stumbled upon a camper and were sure we would finally get directions, or at least learn where we were, but nobody was in the camper. It was all locked up!  We also found a barn-like, house or garage and again no people associated with it. Things were not looking up at this point in the run and Mird was getting nervous because there was a family wedding at noon;  if we were truly lost and a search party was sent to find us, that would really mess up the nuptials.  As we pondered our situation and jogged along in hopes of finding some landmark, house or path that would somehow direct us, we became more and more concerned about the wedding and our ability to survive in the woods unassisted.  But our shoes ran on!

Alas, we continued on in search of assistance navigating home.  A short time later, we stumbled upon a house and more importantly a guy smoking a cigarette on the porch of that house. Generally I would try to educate someone about the many dangers of smoking, but given our situation, we decided to forego health class and get directions instead.  After a short conversation with the smoker dude, we learned that we were about 3 miles from the cabin.  In order to avoid a repeat on our adventure, we stuck to the roads from that point on.  I am somewhat ashamed to admit this, but we actually flagged down a car and hitched a ride home.  This is the first time I have ever done this in all of my running years.  It was all in the name of responsibility, love and motherhood! If there is one thing more important in this world than running, it is family and we really wanted to get home to them so they didn't worry needlessly, or send out a search party and ruin the wedding.  We arrived home just as everyone was awakening and snacking with Uncle Glen so truly it was all okay!

 BUSTED 

Post sneaky run mug shot! 

 The Traveling Shoes!

This is what we learned:

 but we were definitely lost!  

Ironically this very sign hangs in the bedroom that I slept in all weekend long!

Standish MI September 7, 2015!  It doesn't count for a state, or a race, but it definitely counts as an adventure of the running variety with my sister and that is more important than any race in the whole entire world!  We owned the woods!

PS  Vern wrote this one for Mird! So thanks. Mird, for the weekend adventure and the clean pair of underwear!

Indiana or Bust!

So you might think since we live in Michigan the next state we would embark on would be the mitten state, but you would be so wrong.  The next adventure saw us all, Amazing Race style and deciding on a complete whim (en route to Illinois to go to Taylor Swift concert and run the Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon mind you) to sign up last minute for a trail run in Michigan City Indiana!  This too was a great adventure! And while most people would consider it crazy to run a 5k trail run less than 24 hours before planning to run a half marathon oh and remember with a T Swift concert sandwiched in between, we really embraced the opportunity to be carefree, spontaneous and half way crazy!

We literally pulled into the train station that morning intending to catch the early train, called Mird's husband to have him see if there was a race in the area (because we are both old school in that we dont have smart phones) learned there was one 4 miles away, drove at lightning speed (but within posted speed limits) to get there, changed in the parking lot of the school, ran the race in less than thirty minutes and returned to catch the 9:30 train! We were in Chicago before eleven!  It was EPIC!

Check it out!  And we even won first and second place in our age group!  And they even mailed us our medals because we didn't have time to wait around for the awards ceremony!  Ain't nobody got time for that!

PS The humidity was beyond horrible for this one and there were heat advisories informing people to stay in air conditioning unless absolutely necessary to get out.  This was necessary!  This is a great memory! This is the sisterhood of the traveling running shoes in action.

State Number Two Indiana Super Heroes 5K Trail Run July 18, 2015 Michigan City, Indiana

Mird and Vern Out

THE PACT

The Pact:  50 states. 50 races.  2 sisters.  1 goal.

Survival!!!

To survive (and complete) a race in all 50 states; you know before we die so this is totally a bucket list item!  We are already up to 4 with minimal effort so I totally think we will get there. Hopefully while we are still young enough to remember the journey!  Now you might think this is crazy.  Perhaps.  But for the record, I disagree completely.  There are marathon maniacs out there running marathons in all 50 states or folks running 50 miles in one day for like 12 or 13 hours straight.  Those people are crazy with a capitol C.  Us we're just half crazy!  This journey is just fun, adventurous and a good reason to be healthy and travel the good old U S of A.

The Cast:

Mird is the younger sister by six years, but who is counting!?  She lives with her husband and two boys in central Michigan and began her running career in August 2014.  When recently asked why she took up running Miranda said, "to try to be healthier oh and to be like you (Vern).  She used to consider Vern crazy because of her out-of-control running habit, but has since modified her opinion And now only thinks her sister is half crazy and she wants to be just as crazy as her one day!

Vern is the middle child (and middle sister) in the girls family of four siblings. Rebel is the odd boy out and was stuck with all us girls growing up!  Veronica became a somewhat crazy runner about 5 years ago shortly after deciding to stay home with her then 3 children ages 3,1 and newborn (now 9,7,5).  Her running was done out of sheer self preservation people; do you have any idea how tough it is to be home with very young, very needy, children. all. day. long?! Running was her life raft in the rough seas of motherhood.

So Mird and Vern embarked on this mildly crazy adventure in December 2014 during a family vacation in Florida at a 10k race.  It was Mird's first ever 10K and Vern's and Mird's first ever Florida race.  It was groovey baby! Yes, this particular race was a 70's theme Blast to the Past run and we even dressed up for it!  Check it out!

State Number One Florida!!!

New Year's Day 2015 Temple Terrace, Florida 

Blast to the Past 10k

Florida Motto:  YOLO You Only Live Once!

It was the perfect start to our fun running adventure affectionately named,

 "the sisterhood of the traveling running shoes"

So alas this is the end of our inaugural post.  We hope you will follow us on the journey!

Vern and Mird