October 2, 2002: Driving to Chicago is nice. The country is beautiful, especially the rolling hills in Missouri. Chicago gets its name from the native Potawatomi Indians who lived near the Chicago River (Checagou in Indian) in the 1600s. We are told that wild onions are native to this area, and that the Indian name Checagou came from these wild onions. We are on our way to do a 24-hour urban adventure race there. It is touted as one to “Make You Cry”. In route, we drive past the St. Louis Arch, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. It brings back memories of driving from Dallas to Peoria in the back of a Volkswagen Bug. My parents had the front, my brothers had the back, and I remember having the designated spot in the very back where the window makes the curve. To keep me occupied, my parents bought me a car that winds up and when you let it go, it would roll until it hit the wall, then it would rear up, flip over and head the other way. This car kept me busy and happy in my small spot in the back of the bug.
The area in Kent’s savage 4-Runner is much like this. There are two front seats and we leave just enough room in the back for one person to fit lengthwise and sleep. Beyond that, tupperware boxes with gear and duffle bags of clothes are stacked from floor to ceiling. Our bikes and wheels are attached to a rack on the back. If only I had a small wind-up car to play with, I would be set.
We pull into a truck stop on the way to refuel. It is a large parking lot that will be perfect for Shaun to try out his roller blades. Oh, did I forget to mention this race will have roller blading in it, and Shaun has never roller bladed! Originally, Shaun was coming to be our support crew and help with our mapping and navigation, but due to a last minute illness of another teammate, he had to step into the shoes of a racer. No big deal for Shaun, as he has done plenty of big races…it was just that lack of roller blading we wondered about. As his legs wobble like a newborn colt while he rolls around the lot for the first time, the cashier working the register leaves her position to get a closer look. She peers through the glass on the door with a huge smile on her face.
“You all are sure an athletic bunch,” she exclaims.
“Yeah, we’re heading to a race in Chicago.” I tell her.
“Well, I hope it’s not a roller blading race!” she says.
“Oh, if you only knew!” I think to myself. Rollerblading is only the beginning…in a 24 hour period, we will run, roller blade, kayak, coasteer (travel along the beach without getting above high-tide line), scooter, mountain bike, canoe, orienteer, stair climb, tyrolean traverse, rappel, and navigate in the city (called a metro run).
I look back at Shaun as he approaches his 3rd lap around the lot. He already has lost the wobbles and now resembles most skaters after weeks of practice. A bored, power-starved security guard approaches and notifies Shaun that he can’t allow this. After all, it is 2 or 3 a.m. and he might get run over by a truck.
Once in Chicago, we stop at Moosejaw (race headquarters) to register and do our pre-race mandatory gear check. We shuffle our gear across the parking lot, past other athletes doing the same thing. On the way across the lot, we discover one lady is a world-class roller blader and we ask for some quick tips for Shaun. She laughs when we tell her he has never bladed, and not knowing or wondering whether we are serious, she quickly decides the best tip is how to brake. Shaun soaks it all in and we make our way into the store.
Here, we manage to do a few more useful things besides our gear check. While I am busy getting a hard shell flying saucer like frisbee thrown into my achilles tendon (this almost makes me cry) by a customer who has a seeing impaired dog that can’t catch, Shaun and Kent meet Remy, one of the store employees. They ask her if she can be our support crew for the first few hours of our race until Terry, one of Kent’s friends, can take over. Not knowing what she is in for, she gladly accepts.
“I have to work until 2:00 p.m.,” Remy says, “so that will be perfect. All I have going on this weekend is an ultimate frisbee tournament.”
Our race starts at 3:30 p.m. so we are hoping we can show/teach her everything she’ll need to know to support a 24-hour adventure race in only 1 hour.
Next we head to the beach area to locate the start/finish line. After realizing we can’t find it because it isn’t set up yet, we proceed to Terry’s luxury apartment on Lake Michigan. It is a great view of the city, and I study the buildings wondering if I will remember any of it tomorrow. Terry and Kent went to school together when they were growing up, and it is nice to hear their laughter in the background as Terry shows Kent all the latest pictures. We decide on a nice Italian dinner for our pre-race meal, and we head out walking, as most downtowners must do, to a building that is behind another building that Terry points out in the distance. As we walk, I realize the restaurant is farther than what it looked like from up high in the apartment, but it will be good to stretch our legs after that 15-hour car ride. We settle in to eat, and Shaun’s and Kent’s eyes are immediately drawn to a plate of lasagna on a nearby table that is twice the size of our table (well, not quite that big). They end up ordering that, of course, and I go for the salmon special. Terry gets some weird concoction with Italian Sausage in it, and we all wind up with more food than we can stomach. Terry quizzes us on his ‘support crew’ responsibilities, and we try our best to fill him in on our expectations. It will certainly be hard for a non-adventure racer to figure out what we need, especially since he can’t even get to the race until 3-4 hours after we start.
After a slower walk back to the apartment, we settle down to sleep in anticipation of the race the next day. Dawn comes early, and the reflection of the sun off the skyscrapers forces my eyes open. Good thing. There just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done before the race starts. We fill our stomachs with scrambled eggs, cereal, bananas, bagels and orange juice, and then head to the starting line with all our gear. It is a short drive and we are in the transition area within 10 minutes. Still, it is around 10:00 a.m. and the maps are to be handed out at 11:00 a.m. We think this will be plenty of time to plot our points and fill up our packs with what we deem necessary depending on the race instructions we will receive at 11:00 a.m.
We try to prep our packs, but as we start dragging all our gear out of the car, we realize we really shouldn’t drag all our gear out of the car because our transition areas will be moving, and therefore, we can’t set up a permanent spot. And so, we put some stuff back in the car and only unload a limited amount. We head to the meeting to get the maps, and immediately Shaun begins to plot points while Kent and I wait in line for our 2 scooters. Sometimes it pays to be at the back of the line, because when they run out of scooters, they have to unbox some brand new ones, which we are able to get. I like this…the wheels will not be worn down.
I help Shaun plot some points while Kent gets his gear ready, then we switch out, and Kent helps plot points while I get my gear ready. Somewhere in the madness, Kent has to leave to pick his mom up from the train station, some bottled water for the race, and some sandwiches for lunch.
Remy arrives just about the time I start pulling my hair out and realize we haven’t laminated our maps yet. This is important for when you are in the water and they get wet. I wish I had our laminating job on video, because it is pretty ridiculous. I am stressing so I cut the maps down to just the part we will be using before we laminate them. Normally you would do this afterwards so you can laminate in nice square or rectangular shapes. My map is more of a raisin with a piece of what Florida would look like hanging off the bottom. I believe we got the most comments for the most original looking map though! Anyway, a few minutes later, and a few extra pieces of grass laminated to the inside of our map (we forgot a map table as well), we are ready. However, somewhere in this mad scramble, I’m sure I leave Remy wondering what in the crazy world she signed up for. I am very nervous and straight faced at this point, and possibly it appears that I am not happy (though deeply I am having the time of my life). If ever there is a time in this race for me to cry, it is now. But I didn’t cry! We try to show her on the maps where she will be meeting us for our first transition with her. These parts will be crucial in the race.
The race is starting in 10 minutes and, hello, Shaun, have you gotten to pack your gear yet? Shaun has been working on the maps the most, so he has a few things to do to get ready. With 8 minutes to go the guys tell me lets go. I say, “Hey, we got 8 minutes, so chill.”
“We have 8 minutes to run to the start,” they tell me.
“Isn’t the start right here on the beach?” I ask.
“No, you have to cross the pedestrian bridge across Lakeshore Blvd., run to this park, and start there!” they answer back.
Race on! We are off, sprinting to the start and I have to pee. Doesn’t this always happen to me? I should accept it by now. I see a last minute port-o-potty in the park, and dodge in just moments before the start. We line up next to the start banner, high-five each other, and wait with the other 75 teams for the drop of an arm. And we are off. For the next 24 hours and 8 minutes we race. I will try to condense a race of this length into the shortest amount of space I can. Here goes!
Shaun sprints up ahead and passes world famous Ian Adamson on the pedestrian bridge; it reminds me of the Eco Primal Quest race when we took off with Ian at the start, and were honored to be on his heels, if only for a 100 yards until he lost us in the trees. The first leg is a mere sprint back to the transition area where we must put on our roller blades and head off down the beach for about 12 miles. We are in the top 10 teams heading into the transition area, which would explain why Kent’s mom doesn’t see us run in to transition, and she still faces the rest of the teams with her video camera as they run into the parking lot. As we put our roller blades and packs on, Kent yells out, “Mom, we’re over here.”
“Oh, my”, she says, as the camera is rolling and now scans over to where we sit on the pavement. We have a very slow transition because we still don’t have all our gear prepped, and we leave out on our roller blades around 30-40th place. It is just as well though, because I’m thinking we really don’t need to put Shaun around a big crowd of roller bladers on his first outing. But he surprises us, and takes off like a wild man in a sprint, passing several teams right off the bat. “Wow” I think, I guess we can pick up the pace. Now we are in a rather bad section of sidewalk, and next thing I hear is “Wham”. I look back and Shaun has managed to catch a crack or a rock and fall back on his wrists. Good thing Kent has given him some wrist guards, as it is the plastic on the guards I hear slamming the cement as he falls. But Shaun doesn’t cry. After this, we ease up on our pace, but even so, we are still passing teams. Unbelievable! We slowly work our way up in the field, I’m guessing to around 20 – 25th place somewhere.
We pull into the beach area, and here, one of us must separate from the other two. Two of us can proceed in the kayaks in Lake Michigan for 8 miles, while the other must carry their roller blades in their pack and travel on foot for 8 miles, coasteering back up the beach to a designated spot, where they will be allowed to roller blade the rest of the way to the next transition area. Well, our pick for the coasteer is an easy decision; get Shaun off the blades, and let Kent do his magic with his running legs. So, Shaun and I head to the beach for our kayaks. I am instructed to get a ‘small’ boat by the officials, and Shaun is allowed to get a large one. OK by me at first, until I got about 100 yards out and begin to be tossed around with each incoming wave. As I wait for Shaun to meet me (he is having trouble with his spray skirt on his boat, and ultimately has to leave it off), I begin to have visions of my race in the British Virgin Islands. The feelings of seasickness are already overtaking me again. When Shaun gets beside me, he takes one look at my face and yells out, “Is that a smile I see?”
“No! It is not a smile!” I assure him. I am not happy about my small boat, and with each huge yacht that cruises by, the new sets of waves mixed with the existing swells in the lake make me feel like my boat is going to flip at any minute. I’m worried mostly about flipping and filling my boat up with water and having to use the bilge pump. This would not be good for our time. We are doing so well at this point. We have picked a line across the lake that is further off shore, while other boats are closer in following the contour of the land.
Shaun paddles up next to me and notices my puny face. “Hey Kat, your Camelbak nipple is dragging in the water, you might want to pick it up.”
I look back and see it is indeed dragging in the water. I look at the waves rolling at me from the side. I decide not to risk trying to take my hands off the paddle at this time to retrieve my drinking tube. “Yea, I know,” I manage to sputter, “I’ll get it in a while.” But I didn’t cry.
At this point, Shaun knows I am neither feeling well, nor feeling good about the paddle, so he tries to brighten my day. “Hey, see that team over there? That guy is about to sink, or flip his boat any minute.” In fact, Shaun even paddles up to the other teammate who is further ahead and tells him that his partner doesn’t look so well.
“Yea, I know what he feels like.” I tell myself. Well, the next thing you know, the guy really does flip. I manage to somehow keep myself upright while thinking I am glad that wasn’t me. Despite me, we even manage to pass many teams in the water, and by the time we land on the beach at our next transition area, we have moved up into top 12 or 15.
Meantime, Kent is picking his way on shore along the rocks, passing lots of teams. He is running in a group of about 4 guys, each constantly passing each other and then passing each other back. At one point, they must enter the lake and actually swim with their packs on and their roller blades. Kent can tell the skates have filled up with water when he exits the lake with extra weight. Some teams opt not to carry their roller blades. This will mean they will be faster earlier, but at the designated spot, they will have to run while others who carried the skates will blade. Some teams even opt to have the kayaks carry the skates and then paddle them into shore at the designated drop zones. I think our method is fastest though, as Kent arrives at the checkpoint at exactly the same time as us, while other teams remain there waiting on their runners or bladers.
We make a relatively quick transition and get to see Remy for the first time. She has our scooters there for us, and we are off, lickety split, scootering our way to our next checkpoint, the Sears Tower. We got there just as the 1st place team is exiting the building. Just think, they are only 206 flights of stairs ahead of us…103 up, and 103 back down. We can make that up! I count the other scooters on the ground outside the building. There are about 10. “Wow, we keep moving up!” I tell the guys.
Once in the tower, we must get our backpacks screened through security, just like at the airport. One security guard lady asks us, “How long you guys racing, about 3 hours?”
“24 hours” we tell her in unison.
I thought she was going to fall over and die right there. “Oh heavens, 24 HOURS! Lord ‘ave mercy!” she exclaims.
And we are off, bounding up at least the 1st flight of stairs, past the camera crews and safely out of sight before we are reduced to a walk. We are already exhausted from our 12-mile roller blading, our 8-mile kayak, and our screaming scooter ride to the tower. Our heart rates keep us at a decent walk up the remaining 100 flights. As we walk, I count teams coming down. Once we hit the 103rd floor, I realize we are in 11th. The race officials tell us we have to take a view of the city. Oh my goodness! What a view it is. As short as it is, I am taken back. What an unbelievable site…and to think we climbed the entire way up here! That makes it even better. We make use of the water fountains to refill our Camelbaks, and I make use of the restroom. “Let’s go Kathy,” I hear Shaun yell from outside the women’s bathroom door.
“Can’t a person get some peace? Who are you, the pee Nazi?”
On our way back down the stairs, we pass all the teams that are chasing us. We make sure to look like we are flying, and indeed we are now and again. After passing the same pile of spit out energy bar on the floor that I saw on the way up, I know we are close to the bottom. Much quicker than we ascended, we are down at ground level.
Back on our scooters, we shove off to find several more checkpoints for another 10 miles, all at local popular bars. This is a lot of fun. We are swerving in and out of traffic, up and down sidewalks. At one point, we are flying down a sidewalk when a kid and his mom walk out of a store.
“WOW!” the wide-eyed kid says as Shaun flies by.
“WOW!!” he says again as I go by.
“WOW!!!…Hey mom, can I have one of those?” the kid begs as Kent flies by next.
Now we have to find a club called Cubby’s. This is right across from Wrigley Stadium, but Kent is leading the way. We are on a dark sidewalk with lots of potholes in it, one of which Kent finds and crashes hard in. This is one of those crashes where he doesn’t see it coming and the front wheel of the scooter falls into the hole, causing the skid plate to screech to a halt, and thus sending Kent flying over the top to the ground. He lands on his hands and by the time I get to him, he is holding them up in the air and muttering something that I can’t understand. I think maybe he has broken them, but he just has some road rash and is actually in much better shape than if I would have taken the same fall. Ouch! But he is o.k., and best of all, he doesn’t cry.
Once we have all our checkpoints, we end up back in the transition area on the beach and trade our scooters for mountain bikes. Somehow, we lose a spot or two in transition. We head off into the night for our next few checkpoints and a distance of 15 miles. We have night-lights on our bikes and flashing taillights. We are flying down the roads, and pass another team. We get to do a little single track (only 3 miles) along a river, but all too quickly it is over, and we are at the next transition.
When we pull up, we expect to see Terry with all our gear. Instead, we find the car in total darkness, and Terry has just arrived. Terry is Remy’s replacement, and they made their own “transition” so to speak of our support crew while we were cycling. Now how hard would it be to work support crew for the first time for three people in a 24 hour race, in a dark parking lot with no street lights, and have to start mid-way through the race in a sport in which you do not participate? I would have to guess “EXTREMELY”. Poor Terry has only had enough time to lay out a sleeping bag and pillow on the ground. We are wondering if he was about to take a nap.
“No,” he assures us with that incessant smile he has. “I was going to put all your gear on this bag.”
The back of the car looks like a bomb went off inside, and he was just trying to figure out what all we needed. And so, with Terry’s help, we find what we need from the car and mutter some quick instructions about where to look for a canoe seat that we might leave on the shore if it doesn’t fit our boat…and we are off. We have a relatively quick transition, and leave on the canoe leg right behind two other teams. We quickly pass both teams, and move back into 11th place in the race.
The canoe leg is long (16 miles), and also in the middle of the night. Though my seat is right behind Kent and I am paddling and constantly getting water dumped on me (we are paddling with kayak paddles rather than with single blades), I use this time to get sleepy and yawn no less than 37 times. We are on the water for about 3 hours, or something. During this time, we pass several teams and work our way up to 9th place in the race. However, the evening was not uneventful.
We are traveling down the Des Plaines River, passing shopping carts and other various river hazards. The water level is low, and many times we get stuck in shallow water and have to jump out and drag the canoe. Then I hear a thud from the back of the boat, and a chuckle. “What is going on back there?” Kent and I yell.
“I just fell off my seat!” yells Shaun back to us. Understandable we presume…it is fairly late at night.
“Whoa! Whoa! Go LEFT, LEFT!!!” I yell. “I see a log!”
“Where?” yells Kent back to me.
“There, dead ahead. See it? Go LEFT!”
“Kathy, watch this, we’re going to break right through that hallucination!” yells Shaun. And we do! We bust right through my imaginary log and keep going.
“Well, it was there.” I whisper to myself.
“Whoa, Whoa! Go RIGHT, RIGHT! Shallow water left!” I yell later in the night.
We paddle to the right, and slowly, we pass right by, once again, an imaginary sandbar. “OK, I’ll keep my big mouth shut.” I say.
Then later, “Hey, Shaun.” I yell. “Do you have any of that beef jerky?” Shaun passes me a handful, which I in turn I divide up and stuff half in Kent’s mouth and half in mine. I am the feeder since I’m stuck in the middle. Kent must keep paddling. (hee hee)
“What is this?” Kent mumbles with his mouth full. “Is this supposed to be a little 2:00 a.m. river humor?”
“No, this is beef jerky!” I tell him. “And ummmm, this is the best beef jerky I’ve EVER had!” And no kidding, it is! Beef jerky never tasted this good. Maybe I am hungry because we have been racing for almost 12 hours by now, or maybe it is really just that good. But it is worth a comment.
And then I see a cookie! And no, this is not a hallucination! This time, I really see a cookie! (another team in front of us to catch, and hopefully pass).
We focus on this team and Shaun instructs us to do 20 second sprints. And so, at his command, we sprint 20 strokes and then take it back to normal speed. Then a minute or so later, 20 strokes of sprinting, then back to normal speed. It takes quite a few intervals, but we definitely close on the glow stick dangling from the back of the canoe in front of us. Every time they round a corner, it disappears for a few minutes, and the guys, of course, feel the need to tease me about whether I am hallucinating or not. And so our game goes on, until we reach the end of the river leg and pull the boat out of the river. We have to portage the canoe for about ¼ mile to a truck before we are allowed to continue on foot to our next transition. And so the guys carry the canoe, and I take our three packs and three paddles, and we make our way to the drop-off.
We arrive in transition and this time Terry is ready for us. He has all our gear laid out for us to pick through and refuel our packs with food. We are all shivering from the temperature drop and being on the water, so we quickly change clothes behind our makeshift dressing rooms (car doors). There is no port-o-potty here, so I walk behind a car that is parked in the darkness.
“Hey, Kathy!” blurts out Shaun, “Are you going to pee?”
“Now why is it that every time I have to go to the bathroom it has to get announced?” I wonder. “Yes, I WAS going to the bathroom.” I explain. And then it hits me. Pringles! Oh my goodness! I smell them! “Who’s got PRINGLES?” I blurt out in desperation. “I smell them! Who has them?”
And then we see Shaun dumping them out of his short’s leg. He had them the entire time in the canoe. I’m not sure how they survived all the water being slung around…but they sure smell good. But unfortunately, I wasn’t going to eat any of those.
Off we go on our bikes again in the dark, heading for the countryside somewhere on the south side of Chicago in the Red Gate Woods in Palos Park. We have only 11.5 miles to cycle and then our next checkpoint will be a park, where we will be doing classical orienteering the instructions say. “Hey, do you think we should take our running shoes?” I quiz anyone that is listening.
“No, I don’t think we’ll need them. The checkpoints will probably be right on the trail since we are on our bikes.” I’m told.
Makes sense to me…at the time anyway.
And so we bike in the darkness to the park, where we receive instructions to leave our bikes and begin the orienteering section on foot. It is a mere 5 miles. Double take! What did you say? We all look at each other, and then down at our feet, standing there in our stiff soled mountain bike shoes with cleats. Now this is going to be fun! (and no, we didn’t cry) And oh did I mention, I didn’t bring leg gators either to protect my legs from the thorns we will be traveling through? Shaun and Kent are both wearing tights…so at least I will get some comfort in knowing they are less agitated than me. Shaun pulls out a sandwich from his short leg. I am even less agitated now as I consume half of it (good thing for baggies).
And so we dash through the woods, and our cycling cleats can be heard coming down the rocky trail….tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Shaun leads us right to the first checkpoint and we are heading for #2. On the way, we advance our position as we see other teams that were ahead of us still looking for #1. Then we make a semi-fatal mistake and look for checkpoint #2 on the wrong side of the trail in a marsh. I receive the most leg slashings there, as I find the tall thin blades of grass in the marsh to actually grab my shins and slice them as I pass by. Our feet get wet and a little muddy, when next we realize we are indeed looking in the wrong place. No big deal, because we catch our mistake, but in the process, we lead at least three teams to checkpoint #2 that see us enter the woods to get it. The rest of the checkpoints come and go in the night, and somewhere near the end of the course, I am running behind Shaun when my headlight begins to go dim. Next thing I know, thwap, and I hit my head on a low hanging branch that grabs my headlight and my baklava and rips them off, dropping them on the trail behind me. I yell at Kent to stop as I run back to find my light. Kent shines his light on the trail so I can see and we find it laying just past the enemy branch. I pick up the little Tikka (my 3rd one to lose or break this year alone), and notice the battery compartment is busted open and the batteries are gone. We spend a few more minutes searching for the batteries. I finally decide that 2 out of 3 batteries ain’t bad, but it won’t fix my light, so we continue on without it. It is almost dawn now, and soon, I won’t need it anyway.
We make it back to the transition and receive another map. This time, we are instructed to find some more checkpoints on a 6-mile single-track loop on our bikes. Great! I knew we wore our bike shoes for a reason. I have a new blister now on my heel, but have learned not to talk about things like that anymore. Last time I did a race with Kent and complained about a blister, he showed me his blister and it made mine look like it was still a fetus. So, we head out, and pass another team on the bike orienteering. We even take one long cut, instead of a short cut, but it works out o.k. We exit the woods, and now have 18 miles more cycling back into the city.
“We are looking for Pulaski Street” Shaun tells us.
O.K. We search and search and ride and ride, and when we think we have been the appropriate distance we begin to ask pedestrians on the street if they know where Pulaski Street is. “Just right down there” is the most common answer. And so we pedal forward.
“Pulaski Street?” we quiz the next corner pedestrian when we start to doubt ourselves again.
“Just ahead” they point us on in the direction we are going.
“Pulaski Street?” we ask again several more city blocks and major stop lights later.
“Yep, just ahead!” a kid tells us.
“Shaun, are you sure?” I quiz him about the street we are looking for. “You told me it was o.k. to second guess you, so are you sure?”
What is it about this street? Just ahead in Chicago can mean a lot of things I guess. What seems like several miles finally brings smiles to our faces when we at last start passing Italian named streets and there it is…Pulaski Street!
We find our checkpoint and are told we can take the train back to the city or ride our bikes. The volunteer tells us the train will take 20 minutes to ride, plus 10 minutes to wait for it to arrive. He tells us if we cycle, we are only 8 kilometers from the police station. This is only about 5 miles, so I quickly calculate in my head that we can cycle 5 miles much faster than 30 minutes.
The guys agree, and we are off, heading for the police station on bike. Well, in retrospect, we should have taken the train. I doubt it was a 10-minute wait, because another team behind us caught the train right after we left and easily beat us to the next checkpoint. We could have used that time to refuel (stuff our faces with food and water), rest, and figure out our routes for the remainder of the race. Instead, we cycled fast and furious and didn’t gain any ground on the other teams, and in fact lost some.
Water under the bridge, we arrive at the transition area. We grab our coasteer gear for a 4-mile trek along the beach. Most of the coasteer is hopping from rock to rock just below the sea wall. We are not allowed to travel up on the smooth surface of the seawall, and so we hop and bobble on the broken rocks below. It is hard to make good time, and so we just travel safe. There are 2 construction zones they tell us to go around, and as we round the 2nd of the 2, another team passes us going the other way on the paved trail along Lakeshore. The woman on the team yells out, “Oh, Cheating are you?”
Now if they didn’t go around the construction zone, then they would have been cheating, not us, I think. Shaun and Kent tell me to let it go, and so I do….but obviously, I still think about it. Our life jackets are hot that we are running in, and Shaun begins to cramp a little and has to take some electrolytes. He takes them out of the first aid kit and finds them in a “soggy mush” inside their baggy. Oops, I forgot to waterproof them and Kent was carrying the first aid kit earlier when he had to swim with those roller blades. Oh well, they still work, and Shaun is revived. At the transition, the volunteer wonders why we are wearing our life jackets and we tell her it is because they were listed as mandatory gear for the coasteering event earlier in the race. She informs us that they are not mandatory for this particular coasteer, and that we didn’t need to wear them. Oh! And so our penalty for that mistake, besides having run in them for 4 miles already, is that we now must carry them with us for our next event, the Triad.
The triad is where each person rides a different wheeled object. Kent rides the mtn. bike, Shaun rides the scooter, and I ride the roller blades. We attach a bungee from Kent to Shaun, then from Shaun to me, and proceed in a choo-choo train down the paved trail back in the direction we came from, and all the way to the Navy Pier. I decide we need a picture of this. What better way to promote our team name, “Wheels in Motion”, than this? ”
On the way to Navy Pier, we leave the flat trail and head down a hill that allows us to pick up quite a bit of speed. I am doing great in the back, until I catch a rock in my roller blade (right in a busy part of the park with lots of people watching), and my skate shoots off to the right. As it does, my fingers do not unwrap from the bungee in time, and so the bungee acts as a slingshot and shoots me out to the right at a speed far greater than we are already traveling down the hill. As I hit the grass, my blades stop, and I fly through the air and summersault a few times down the hill. Kent is unaware I’ve hit the dirt, and Shaun looks back just in time to see me come to a stop and bounce back up to my feet. I am too embarrassed to stay put, so I trot back over to the paved trail from the grass, and all the spectators ask if I’m ok. I’m great, just a little taken back, but I didn’t cry!
We zoom to the pier, and now have to put on our rock climbing gear and run to the top of the Navy Tower. Here we are allowed to traverse across on ropes from one tower to the other, and then rappel back to the pier. This is fun, and we pass a team in this section.
We triad back to transition, and then we go for a metro run for 5 more miles, looking for answers to questions that we have on a piece of paper. Each building we find contains the answer to our questions somewhere on the building. Then we have to run with these answers to the planetarium and read out our correct answers to a volunteer before being allowed to continue on.
Next, we run out to the beach, and all three jump in separate kayaks and paddle 5 miles back to North Avenue Beach. This time, we each grab a ‘large’ kayak, and the travel is much better and faster than the small boat I was in 23 hours earlier. However, the waves are huge in this section, and the Coastguard boats escort us across the harbor to keep us safe from the huge boats zipping all around us. We paddle to the beach, then drag our boats past all the beachgoers to the other side of the sandy pit. We run back across the same pedestrian bridge we started the race on and cross the finish line in the park, 128 miles later. We finish 13th, and are 1 of only 16 teams that finishes the entire race out of 76 teams that started. We are happy, and hugs and smiles await us at the finish line.
Now to get home! One look in the now “smelly” 4-runner and we almost pass out. Rather than rearrange everything, some of us take the taxi back to the apartment; others take the 4-runner. While everyone showers before dinner, Susie (another of Kent’s friends) tells us stories about her niece getting pregnant by her x-boyfriend’s roommate while chasing him down in Florida (Susie admits this is prime material for a talk show). Shaun returns from the shower and sits down on the couch and repeats the entire thing he just heard from the shower. We all decide he has good ears (for gossip only), because when he accidentally knocks the plant over that is next to him, “Thwap” and the dirt spills out on the white carpet, he continues to talk, unaware of the plant’s downfall. We give him a hard time, and then head to dinner for some great pizza at a place that Terry and Susie recommend. Kent’s mom, Pat, has to leave early to catch her train, but she slips some cash into Kent’s hand to cover our dinners, and we are elated. A little pizza, a little beer, and my eye’s can no longer be held open with even the strongest toothpick. The mother in me opts for the couch and some sleep back at the apartment, while the kiddies all head out for another beer.
Morning comes early, and mistakably, we have left the 4-runner parked in the garage over night with all our wet, sweaty gear. Terry takes much delight in watching us pick our way through the smell and reorganize for our drive home. This takes no less than 1 hour, and we are finally on the way to Texas.
As we leave Chicago, we are reminded of the coolest city around. On the freeway leaving town, we hear a horn honking and look over our shoulder to see a 50ish woman swerving through traffic (much like the swerving we did on our scooters), her hair done up in the biggest pink and green rollers I’ve ever seen since the “I Love Lucy” show with Ethel Mertz. As she passes to our right, her right arm extends fully out of her open window and she shoots the bird to the car behind her, sputtering cuss words as she glares in her rear view mirror. The custom license plate reads, “HAGATHA”, and we are all sure she just might be Hagatha, the witch, rather than a decendent of one of the Potawatomi Indians, a normally peaceful and prosperous people.
We resume our positions in the car. Kent drives, I ride shotgun, and Shaun is in the poll position, awaiting his turn to drive. As he rests in the small crawl space in the back, he talks on the phone to Bonnie. I doze in and out of sleep as I hear only static coming from the radio. As Kent turns into the next gas station, our load shifts and the stack of tupperware boxes loaded with our gear comes tumbling down in the back on top of Shaun. From the depths of the pile, I hear Shaun say into the phone, “I gotta go. I just got crushed by some boxes.” But I never saw tears, and indeed, none of us ever cried!
Kathy Duryea – Team “Wheels in Motion”
10/02/02
Racer D 
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