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Well, once again I found myself striding down Michigan avenue in the pre-dawn dark, wearing largely women's clothing. And sunglasses. The lavishly fuzzy pink bathrobe I had purchased the previous year, and had worn for the entire race - it had been somewhat chilly that year. Scott had a charming white one, and we both looked fabulous. This year I had added a very nice pair of pink DeSoto shorts ( winter sale ), and my singlet was of the purple TnT variety. The original purpose of the bathrobe theme was to first of all to stay warm at the start, and then of course to attract attention to ourselves. Ok, mainly me attracting attention to myself, poor Scott gets dragged ( how's THAT for a pun? ) along. But jeepers, when I left the hotel at 6:00 am, it was already nearly 80 degrees! It was a tad warm already. I love the feel of race morning Chicago - the swarming runners walking purposefully in the dark, the ranks of cops, the ususal angry taxis, the noise and smells of the city. The plan was to meet up with Scott, and our two new recruits to the bathrobe brigade, Jen and Al - the meeting place was Buckingham Fountain. I arrived first, and walked laps around the fountain attracting the usual stares. I saw the medical tent, and approached the man at the door, asking if they had any morphine - trying to be proactive, turned out the answer was no. Then I found Scott, Al, Josh, Amy, Jen and her friend. Now only Scott, Jen, and Al were attempting the bathrobe thing, the rest had serious ambitions about actually running. Jen looked great in a multi-multi-multi color terry cloth outfit. Al had a really cute pair of striped pants on - and an orange mask - preferred anonomimity for some reason? I observed Jen winding tape around Scotts midsection - at first I assumed he was trying to disguise his too frequent trips to McD's, but the I realized they were taping a small whiteboard to his back. I should add that Scott had a bath towel around his waist. I guess the idea was to invite young ladies to a moving game of tic-tac-toe, with prize being a peek under the towel. How shameful. But before we got further underway, Jen provided Scott and I with some purple glitter, and I had a supply of temporary tattoos. Not TiWi ones, but rather lipstick kisses:  I had applied one to my face, another to my chest, another a little lower, lower, and one on my butt for good measure. I had extras for Scott and Al. I knew Scott would go for it, so that operation went smoothly. Is it wrong for one man to apply a wet towel to another man's bared butt in the middle of Grant Park on a Sunday morning? I don't think so. It looked great - the tattoo I mean. Al got one too, he has very firm and perky buttocks. I almost forgot, Jen supplied us all with silver tira's Anyhow, on to the race. We made our way into the corral, and waited. At some point the race started, and we walked to the start line. At that point we had to start the running, and I nearly lost interest in the whole thing. But, the usual cheers of "GO BATHROBE GUYS" brought me around, and we jogged on. It wasn't too bad while we were running in the tunnel, but once out in the sun, I began to feel a tad warm. I decided to try to hang on to the robe for a mile, but any more than that and I'd be strarting to roast in my own juices. I ditched my lovely garment on a fence - I noticed Jen and Scott held on to theirs, although Jen had a fetching off-the-shoulder look going at that point. I think we made the first mile in about 30 min gun time. Going north on the stretch near the lake is always nice - great views. But then we got to the first water stop, and ohhhhhh boyyyy - NO WATER. The street was strewn with cups, clearly there had been water at one time, but not a cup to be had now. Frankly, this worried me alot. DIsturbingly, I noticed people grouping around the decorative fountain in front of an apartment building - my god, it looked like they were filling bottles from it. On we went. We took the traditional opportunity at the marina to pee in the middle of the park, and ran on, I remembered that another water stop was a few miles ahead. We did find it, or, it may have just been some kind of riot, it was hard to tell. Volunteers were filling cups from scarce jugs as fast as they could - there was no Gatoraid to be found. I got about two cups in me. THe day was starting to look grim, but I was determined to have fun - what to do? I decided I wasn't attracting enough attention - without the bathrobe, I was just another Joe in pink shorts and a tiara.Fortunately, I had planned for this. Under the pink shorts, I had on my favorite swim suit. A model by Splish, bright pink with tropical flowers and fruits: Well, that was better. I was cooler, the lipstick tattoos were more visible, and I was definitely attracting attention. So anyhow, we left off somewhere near the north turnaround, Scott and Jen still bathrobe-clad, I think, and playing to the crowds as usual. We made the turn, and began to head back south towards the loop through the Wrigglyville area - this is probably my favorite part of the course. Nice streets, and great crowd support - and just the right spot for a man in a pink flowered Speedo ( I should be correct here, the suit is actually made by Splish - www.splish.com and is the best quality suit I've ever owned ). We passed the all-male-drag-cheerleader squad, this is where the tattoos on the butt came in handy. We had some shade along this stretch, so things were fairly comfortable, and everybody seemed to be doing pretty good. The water still pretty hectic - but there generally was fluid available, but you had to go to the right spot and stand and wait. This slowed our pace considerably, but I wasn't too worried about that. Going back into the loop there is always great crowds. I was getting hollered at a lot, mainly positive - I think - Go Speedo Guy, nice bod, etc. Sometimes just "Oh MY!" But I was really starting to have fun. I think we hit the half in about 3 hours, by this time Jen and Scott had both ditched their robes, and we were getting back into the sun - and it seemed to be warming up a bit. The loop going west was pretty sunny and hot, we started to see a number of people stopping to deal with cramps - usually I don't see that until the last miles on this course. We did hit one aid station near the turn back east that had no supplies at all - I contemplated going into a school to try to find a drink - but I still felt OK, and had pee'd not too long ago - that was a treat - the porta-potty was about 425 inside. It was somewhere along here that Scott said he wasn't feeling too well, and needed to slow down. A kind spectator gave me a bottle of water - I drank some and gave the rest to Scott - at this point I thought Jen was ahead of me. I went through the Latin section, and stopped to attempt a few steps of Salsa Dance - gee that was hard. I was still in good spirits and in my imagination the shouts in Spanish were complimentary. There were several fire hydrants open here and there - I tried to avoid these - had heard that getting blasted quickly with cold water probably does more harm than good as far as cooling goes - something about making the blood vessels near your skin constrict thus restricting cooling without doing anything for your core temps. I passed a fire truck, and heard an annocement " The Race Has Been Officially Cancelled ", I thought - ' What the hell kind of joke is that? What do they mean cancelled? ' I ran on. I turned the corner through Chinatown, and waved to the Dancing Dragons - they were still at it despite the heat. Lot's of folks were walking now, and it did seem very hot. Somewhere in the 20's I heard the annocement again " The Race Has Been Cancelled - Walk Back To The Finish Area ". Well, that was a great idea, get to the finish - it was what I had in mind all day long. We began that terrible stretch of the course that runs along the freeway then cuts across an overpass and back, a number of folks were cutting across on earlier bridges. About then, police cars drove along the course, with loadspeaker annocements " You Must Walk - No Running Is Permitted" - well THAT was what I wanted to hear - why not stay out in the sun and heat as long as possible. I could still jog at least, and took to the sidewalk when I could. I was running down one sidewalk, when I spotted a middle-aged black man sitting in a lawn chair watching the death march. As I approached - he turned and saw me - a big guy in a pink speedo running towards him - he looked startled and said " WHAT THE F@CK? " I waved as I went past. I had about a mile to walk back to the hotel, all of the shaded areas were populated by exhausted runners, but most folks seemed OK. Back at the hotel, I got about 10 pounds of ice out of the machine and dumped it in the tub with a few inches of water. I lasted two sessions of about 5 minutes each - until I started to shiver. Then a warm shower, and a nap. |
