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!
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