Chicago 13.1 and Soccer

Well Saturday was certainly interesting. When Theresa moved to Alaska, I decided I needed to sign up for a race to make sure that I was going to continue running on my own. Theresa and I ran a long run outside every weekend throughout the winter (the weather never deterred us) so I knew I was in good enough shape to complete a half marathon even if it wasn't for time. So when I started to look into races, I saw there was the Chicago 13.1 coming up and on a weekend that Theresa would be back in town! So about 3 weeks ago, I convinced Theresa to run this race with me for fun and not to focus on time. It really only took a mere mention of it before Theresa was on board and we decided to just have fun with it. Well...that's not exactly what happened! After having such a cool spring, the weather suddenly turned extremely hot. The race started at 7:13 (odd, I know) and I was sweating before it even started. It started under a yellow flag warning, meaning the weather conditions were risky and everyone should be sure to drink lots of water and take it easy. I was feeling pretty good though, so I wasn't too concerned. When I got to mile 9 (Theresa and I separated around mile 6), they changed the flag to a red flag status, meaning they shut down all the mile marker clocks and encouraged people to slow down. When I saw the clocks were shut off, I lost a lot of motivation. It was very hot, but I still felt ok. Within the next mile, I saw a girl passed out on a stretcher, several people on the side sitting with medical aids, and heard lots of sirens of ambulances taking people to hospitals. It was an eerie feeling. Then I noticed that they changed to black flag status, which meant they completely shut down the race and final clock. They had people on golf carts riding through the course to check on people and encouraging runners to take it easy. I continued to run, although I consciously slowed down. I didn't want to walk, mostly because I just wanted the race to be over and not prolong it by walking. At mile 12.5 there was a man yelling into a megaphone at the runners. He told everyone to walk and that the clocks were stopped so we all tied for first place. Everyone around me was walking, which was crazy because I have never been in a race where absolutely everyone was walking at the end. Anyway, the man proceeded to yell at me to stop running. He sort of followed me with the megaphone yelling at me to stop running over and over again. I did my best to ignore him and keep going (I was almost done, so why stop now)! Finally, I finished. I ran my slowest time to date (2:11), but considering the circumstances, I was pretty proud of myself and Theresa as she came in only a minute or so behind me. Turns out that someone actually died during the race and 11 people were taken to a hospital for treatment. So, it wasn't exactly the fun race we were hoping for, but a good experience nonetheless.

Well while we were sweating it out at the race, Ben was sweating it out at his last soccer game. And he had quite the cheering section too as Mama Kay, Papa and Caroline came to watch him!
Abbey was obviously super proud of how well Ben was playing!
I hear Ben and Aiden were quite the super soccer duo!