the new triathlon: run bike ouch

anyone want to feel a few pounds lighter instantly? try running outside in chicago at noon in august. i got back an hour ago and i still feel down about a gallon of water. but my almost-brother-in-law says planning exercise around off-peak times of day is for sissies, so off i went. in the winter i try to claim that i burn more calories running outside because i have to heat myself up, but now that the city is a great big ez-bake oven, i'm going to claim that i burn more calories running outside because... umm, i don't know, because that was hard? i met my blogmate in her neighborhood for an early breakfast, ran some errands, and then thought it would be smart to run home to conserve fuel and give myself a destination or something. thanks, blogmate, for the phone message ensuring that i was not collapsed somewhere downtown... :)

i might have been collapsed somewhere downtown, but it was only with laughter at the descending alterna-teens in town for lollapalooza this weekend. this pattern is familiar from last year: on friday, everyone's in their alterna-best- little tank tops, short shorts, etc. by sunday, everyone's a sunburned ragged mess. i look forward to the full report from blogmate and friends. for now, i'll content myself with the nice conversation i had with some dreadlocked white guy with an obviously-faked british-sci-fi-accent (seriously, does he think i never watched red dwarf?) we were engaged together in stand-off against one of the charmingly useless corner-traffic police, who had erected a barricade at roosevelt and columbus preventing us from crossing the street. when traffic woman told us we weren't allowed to cross the barricade, despite the total lack of traffic or other pedestrians or concert happenings, we double teamed her: me: "oh, honey, i can't walk that far to cross the bridge. i've been running in this heat for six miles and i still have to get home!" rimmer (making jazz hands) : "looks like SOMEbody has a conTROOOOOOLLL issue!" traffic woman told us that instead of crossing at the nice controlled intersection, because there was a camera where her boss would catch her letting us through and then she'd get in trouble, the right thing for us to do was walk 100 yards north to a gap in the fence, and dart across six lanes of traffic in front of a police car. safety first.

if this is the state of chicago safety for non-motorists, i'm just glad our own bikemyers wasn't any more seriously hurt this past weekend. turns out it's a bad thing when teenage girls on bikes decide to pull their overweight boyfriends behind them on rollerblades, and roll out of control head-on into a pair of very expensive race wheels driven by our friend. ten stitches, one black eye, one fewer pair of eyeglasses, and a pretty hoarse voice later (her helmet got acquainted with his trachea), i guess it could have been worse. hey, if my favorite traffic director were there, she would have sent all three of them straight into lake shore drive to meet an oncoming semi truck. but now bikemyers is... umm, just _myers, until he can replace his totalled ride?

have a safe weekend, friends.
and sm, are you really doing a virtual-san francisco half-marathon? do you get the bag of goodies? that sounds awesome!