next year i'm skipping marathon season and heading straight for the wild scallion urban adventure race. i think my training is well started.
my day started out innocently enough, with a plan to head to little italy to cheer on my good friend dwtacc at mile 18 of the chicago marathon. i was all armed with mp3 player, water bottle, asics, and a pancake breakfast so i could run her in the last 8 miles. i made it successfully to downtown via metra and out to taylor on the blue line, and found out from the starbucks-sponsored pacing info station that she had just passed the halfway mark. knowing i had plenty of time to catch her, i relaxed and watched such notable passers-by as kermit the frog, a few elvises, a farmer chasing his cow... but by the time i'd heard dj buono play his third round of the same motivational italian techno (blogmate, he totally has the same cd you just bought me!), and i still hadn't seen dwtacc, i headed back to starbucks to find out where she was... and they said she'd passed me an hour ago.
feeling deflated since i'd been planning for months to run her in, i trudged back to the el, and called mb and another friend to commiserate. they assured me that i could get the blue line back in time to catch her big finish. just as i stepped onto the train, though, my friend called me back to announce that according to the starbucks(tm) pacing system, dwtacc's pace had dropped off and i could catch her in the south loop if i ran. so i got off the train at halsted and started hauling through the industrial southwest downtown as fast as my legs could carry me, dodging buses, tired marathoners wrapped in foil, loiterers at the greyhound station, all while switching phone calls between mb and my friend who were glued to the pacing screens on their computers. just as i got to the finish line, mb called to tell me that the computer said she wasn't past 24.8 yet, so i could get her for the last mile. feeling inspired once again, i took off down south michigan weaving around police barriers to try and find her... until mb called me two minutes later with "yeah, never mind... she finished five minutes ago." doh.
from this attempt i conclude the following:
1) does the wild scallion include a segment of jumping curbs and police barriers while talking on a cell phone? 'cause someone should want me on their team. i ruled.
2) if starbucks is the new sponsor of the race pacing system, i think this is another reason to prefer caribou.
happy birthday, dwtacc. sorry, girl. it wasn't for lack of trying.
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2 comments:
DWTACC says:
#1) just for going through all that, YOU deserve a marathon metal...or at least a lot of pasta....
#2) just knowing that you, kermit, cow chasing people and elvi (plural) were out there(psychologically) helped me finish!!!
#3) Perhaps this experience was meant to be, so you could find another reason to like caribou over starbucks
Believe me, i KNOW you tried, and i love you for it!
I say to celebrate our b-days we meet up....at a stationary location like a laid back restaurant/ non-shi-shi bar/ chocolate factory/ and RELAX... we deserve it! :)
you're sweet. but i can't help feeling like a marathon failure, since i didn't manage to run the marathon, didn't manage to do more than one training run with you, and couldn't even find you in empty little italy... i owe you chocolate. heck, i owe me chocolate to get over my extreme disappointment.
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